Radiological Marine Biology Survey
7. As part of the safety precautions for the 1956 nuclear
tests in the Pacific, the Commission will conduct two radiological
marine biology open-sea surveys within and west of the Pacific
Proving Grounds.
The surveys will be made one month after the
first and last shots in the series,
8. The purpose of the surveys is to ascertain the amounts
of induced radioactivity resulting from bomb debris in plankton,
fish, and the water at various depths and to determine how far
westward the activity extends,
Continuous radiological
monitoring will be conducted while the ship is under way.
At
25-mile intervals water samples will be taken from the surface
to a 200-meter depth, plankton tows will be made, and fish will be
collected,
The Joint Task Force has assigned the destroyer
escort USS WALTON for. the first survey cruise,
9, Tne Commission also has entered into a contract with the
George Vanderbilt Foundation at Stanford University, under which
scientists will collect samples of water, plankton, marine
invertebrates, and fish in the Caroline Islands,
to these investigations,
In addition
land and marine biological surveys will
be conducted on Eniwetok and Bikini Atolls and in their lagoons,
Samples of water, lagoon life, and animal life on the atolls
will be collected and analyzed for radioactivity,
Medical Resurvey of Marshallese’
~,
pete Ss
BOE :
ey
mivwuese!
10, The medical team returned in March from the second
periodic resurvey of the control group end the Rongelap people
who
were accidentally exposed to fallout from the nuclear
detonation of March 1,
1954,
The preliminary report of the
survey team included the following information:
.
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Part VII