SLIDE 5
Whole-body dose estimates.

On Rongerik Atoll, a military outpost, a set of

film badges were present and readings were obtained (S055).

Monitoring

instrument readings and the film badge results led Sondhaus to postulate total
gamma exposures, from the tine fallout began up to the time of evacuation, of

0.027, 0.022 and 0.018 C kg (106, 86 and 70 R) based on three assumed
fallout durations of 8, 12 and 16 hours, respectively. One film badge

remained outdoors at Rongerik from the time of fallout to evacuation and

recorded 0.025 C kg

(98 R).

The values for whole-body dose estimated by Dunning, Sondhaus and those
estimated by Lessard who used fallout composition studies, are in reasonable
agreement.
These last two approaches were different from each other in that

Sondhaus derived the estimate of whole-body dose from actual measurements of
total exposure (film badges at Rongerik) and exposure rate, while the estimate

by Lessard depended upon measurements of the composition of fallout, living
pattern corrections, and exposure rate measurements made by survey teams
during evacuation efforts.
The approach used by Peterson depended on upperair wind level patterns and the fallout was estimated by him to drift in a
southerly fashion.
This was not in agreement with assumptions used in three
previous and independent approaches (Ha79).
The Peterson results for wholebody dose were, therefore, radically different from other estimates for

persons located at Rongerik and Utirik and do not coincide with measured
values for exposure and exposure rate (Sh57).
It was not clear which exposure rate measurements were accepted by

Peterson for normalizing his meteorology based results.

It is clear that he

accepted one measurement at some location.
He may have purposely overlooked
measured exposure rates in deference to upper-air wind patterns (Pe8l).

ESTIMATES OF WHOLE-BODY ABSORBED DOSE
Grays
Location

1955

1957

1981

1984

of People

Sondhaus

Dunning

Peterson

Lessard

Rongelap
Ailingnae
Utirik

1.75
0.69
0.14

1.70
0.75
0.15

1.10
0.24
0.0033

1.9
11
0.11

Rongerik

0.78

—

10

3.4

0.81

,

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