RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Collection information, such as island sampled, common and scientific
names of fish, number of fish pooled per sample, sex, average whole body
tie
weights, and average lengths, is presented in the odd-numbered tables in
Appendix. There is an odd-numbered table for fish for each collection period
and a final odd-numbered table for invertebrates.
Each of these tables is
followed by an even-numbered table showing the radionuclide concentrations in
the separated tissues and organs from the species collected.
The
and other organs
radionuclides detected most frequently jn the muscle tissue
,
by gamma spectrometry included (in addition to naturally occurring 40K) 137¢s
60co, and 207Bi. Occasionally the radionuclides 155eu, 24lam, 125sb, '08mAg,
l02mgh, and '13mcg were also detected (by gamma spectrometry) in the viscera,
liver, or stomach (gizzard) content samples of fish collected from the more
contaminated regions of the atoll.
The concentrations of the transuranics and
other radionuclides in tissues and organs analyzed by wet chemical methods are
also listed.
The locations of the istands sampled (island locator letter and
number) are shown in Fig. 1.
All concentrations are listed relative to dry
weight, but the dry/wet weight ratios provided may be applied to convert
concentrations to a wet-weight basis.
Representative whole fish concentrations of several
reconstructed
from
the
tissue and organ
radionuclides were
concentration data,
and the
percentages of the respective tissues to whole body weight are given in
Table 4 for species representing three trophic levels (surgeonfish, mullet,
trophic level II;
goatfish,
trophic level III: snapper,
collected from different islands of the atoll in 1978.
trophic
level IV)
These values were used
to compute the percent of the whole body activity associated with
respective tissues.
the
The results from these calculations are shown in Table 6
and are discussed in the following sections.
CESTUM-137 IN FISH
The results in Table 6 show that most 137cs accumulated by fish from the
atoll is found associated with the edible flesh: the lowest percentages are
associated with bone or liver. Concentrations of '37cs in the flesh of all
four species are approximately equivalent to the concentration in the
reconstructed whole body.
5900565
There is no straightforward relationship between
4