the alluvial soil.
However, this relationship between particle density
and soil density does not seem to hold for surface bursts.
The particles
from the balloon shots have an anomalously low density, presumably as a
result of vesiculation.
The densities of the particles from the underground shot appear to increase as they become smaller.
This is consistent with an expected decrease in vesiculation with decreasing particle
size,

We conclude that for large particles (d > 100 um), the density is about
2.4 g/cem?, but that each shot generated particles with considerably
lower and higher densities.

THE PARTICLE SIZE DEPENDENCE OF THE CONCENTRATION OF TRANSURANICS

Introduction

The extent of the data has been discussed in a previous paper.
It was
found that until the early sixties, mostly gross activity measurements
in fallout samples were made.
Sometimes these samples were size-fractionated by means of sieving.
At other times, fused particles were
isolated and their radioactivity measured. Measurements of the concentrations of individual radionuclides were rarely made in size-separated
samples or in individual particles.
The principal characteristics of
all these measurements were that they were made rather shortly after
each test and that they covered the largest particles of our interest in
the fallout field.

Primarily as a result of the pioneering work of Russell (1965) and of

Heft and Steele (1968), more detailed work on both fallout and cloud
samples was performed.
The investigations covered not only the debris
from tests conducted during the sixties, but also samples from earlier
tests in the Pacific and at the Nevada Test Site.
Only cloud samples
above about 200 um, and in some cases less, could not be considered.
We
did not find cases where an attempt was made to isolate individual
particles for measurement of these radionuclide concentrations.
In this
particular report, we will discuss only events that occurred in the very
early sixties and before.
The concern for potential health hazards from radioactive particles at
the Test Site requires us to look into the activity of individual
particles, and the problem is:
Can we infer the concentrations of
transuranics, or at least the particle-size-dependence of these concentrations, from the type of data that are available, particularly from
beta and gamma measurements?
This problem is attached in the next
subsection.

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