[NOT FOR PUBLICATION
PRELIMINARY REPORT
AMES
Decline of gross beta radioactivity in fishes at
Rongelap Atoll to March 1958.
This report extends the observations on Rongelap fishes beyond that
of Welander (1957) up to the spring of 1958 before the series of detonations of this year, and shows the trends on a log-log, rather than a
semi-log basis.
Results appear separately in Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2 for liver,
bone, and muscle of fishes at Kabelle and Rongelap Islands, and in
Rongelap Lagoon
chiefly in the vicinity of Rongelap Island.
Data are most plentiful for Kabelle Island where four full years are
represented, while at the other localities shown observations .were not
begun until nearly a year after the detonation of March 1, 1954 at Bikini
Atoll.
At Kabelle and Rongelap Islands the last two observations are for July
1957 and March 1958.
It will be noted that the decline during this period
was greater at Rongelap Island than at Kabelle Island, bringing the present
levels in uc/kg of wet tissue at south and north ends of the atoll to about
0.01 amd 0.1 respectively.
Kilitbeaur Bonham
Aug SZ (FTES
Lf
"| ARCHIVES
DOW
4