ur/hr.
This would result in a fairly sizable increase in
skin dose but a fairly negligible increase in dose to the
reproduction organs because of the low penetrating ability
of °°Sr B-rays.
We estimate that the maximum bone marrow
and gonadal doses to a person sitting on the surface of the
ground would be at most 10% of the corresponding *87¢s y-ray
dose, while at 1 meter above the ground this ratio would
probably be even less than 0.05.
Since ®°°sr can be taken up
by plants and enter the food chain, the high levels of °°Sr
in the soils of Bikini Atoll should be considered more an
internal radiation hazard rather than an external radiation
hazard and, therefore, will not be considered further in
this report.
In this section, the external radiation environment on
each of the islands surveyed is discussed in detail beginning
with the largest island, Bikini.
All of the terrestrial
gamma total exposure rate data discussed in this section are
given in Table 1.
The available soil concentration data at
the time of publication are given in Table 2.
the Ge(Li)
spectra
of several of the soil
Examples of
samples
from
various islands are shown in Figures 8 through 12.
A.
Bikini
Island
Bikini Island,
the largest island of the atoll,
is
approximately 1/2 mile wide and 2 1/2 miles long (see
Figure 3).
The island is quite heavily overgrown with
brush, primarily scaevola, making passage across the island
very difficult.
Coconut palms and pandanas trees are
Significantly few in number.
Most of these disappeared
during the testing period as roads were laid across the
eeJ
Ree
island and land was cleared for housing and work areas.
The radiation survey of Bikini concentrated on the
former native village area on the lagoon side near the center
of the island.
Two paths were cut across the island near
the northern and southern ends of the village area.
A
survey between these paths was conducted along the overgrown
village road which runs along the lagoon shore about 100 ft.
inland.
Measurements were also made on paths cut across the
northern and southern tips of the island.
A heavily vegetated