Doses from external irradiation @ A. BouviLte er AL.

149

Lagoon

Relative exposure rate

MB 0.58 1.0
HW 035-058

|| 0.19 - 0.35
[| 0.09 - 0.19

|| 0.03 - 0.09
<0.03

0

100 200 300 400 500

Ltt
meters

Fig. 4. Relative exposure rates (arbitrary units) across Eniwetak Island, Rongerik Atoll, in 1978. Data derived from the
U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored aerial radiological survey of the Marshall Islands (Tipton and Miebaum 1981).

organ dose is thus about 8.75 x 10° (Gy R') X 0.75

of 23 atolls and islands, and of three population groups

While the dose conversion factor for an actual
person depends onthe age and sex of the person, or, more
precisely, her or his anthropometric characteristics, doses
in this study were estimated for representative persons,
defined as hypothetical individuals with anthropometric
characteristics that are typical of those of the people who
lived in the Marshall Islands in the 1950’s. Calculations
using anthropomorphic phantoms of different ages
(Jacob et al. 1990) indicate that body size, which is
generally correlated with age, results in slightly higher
doses for younger ages. Based on those calculations, we
adjusted our estimated doses for representative adults to
doses for younger (<3 y, including in utero) and older (3
through 14 y) children by multiplying the adult doses by
1.3 and 1.2, respectively.

al. 2010a). With the exception of the populations of the
atolls that were evacuated following the test Bravo of
1954 or were relocated before the testing began (see

(Gy Gy') = 6.6 X 10° (Gy R‘!) for adults.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Doses from external irradiation were estimated for
the entire population of the Marshall Islands and for each
of the 20 tests that took place at Bikini or Enewetak that
resulted in measurable fallout on inhabited atolls of the
Marshall Islands (see Table | in Simonet al. 2010a). The

population of the Marshall Islands wasclassified into 26
population groups consisting of the permanent residents

that were evacuated or relocated (see Table 2 in Simon et

Simon et al. 2010a, Table 3), we have assumed that our

estimated doses pertained to representative persons from
each atoll, and that there was no movement of those

people from one atoll to another.
Estimated exposures

As shown in Fig. 1, the ground-level exposure rate
decreases very rapidly with time after detonation, by a
factor of more than 1,000 during the first 1,000 h (about

40 d). For that reason, the lifetime exposure varies
substantially with the fallout TOA, as was shown in
Table 2. The example TOA values that were chosen for
Table 2, with the exception of the extreme value of
TOA = 0, correspond to the range of values estimated
for the inhabited atolls after the various tests (Becket al.

2010). As previously indicated, most of the external
exposure occurs within the first year following the
detonation. The influence of the weathering effect is
barely noticeable during the first month after the detonation and only plays a substantial role after one year. It
is, however, extremely important to take the weathering

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