the dependence of the concentration or activity ratio, R, of plutonium
to a refractory nuclide, such as 147pm or !4*4Ce, on the particle diameter, has the form:

R = ad™

;

(a)

where a and m are constants,
ameter of the size fraction.

and d is the median

(geometric mean)

di-

The justification of our assumption, above, is derived from the radial
distribution theory of Freiling (196la).
According to this theory, most
radionuclides are volume-distributed, surface-distributed, or distributed
with a concentration gradient in the particles, so that the radionuclide
content of the particles is described by:

A = bd"

(b)

where A is the activity of the nuclide, or the number of atoms in a
particle, d is the particle diameter, and b and n are constants.
The
value of n lies usually between 2 and 3.
Consequently, the ratio of the
activities of two nuclides, i and j, has the following particle size
dependence:

(A,/A;) =R

i,j

= (b;/b,)d

n, - 7,
i

4

= ad

™m

We admit that for surface and subsurface bursts,

(c)
these relationships are

too simplistic, and the description (b) is not valid for the entire size

range of radioactive particles, which may extend from less than 0.1 um
to 1 mm or above.
No other resource can be had, however.

Twelve sets of data from the events have thus been analyzed.
These
events include one subsurface shot in alluvium at shallow depth, seven
shots on or above coral, and three shots above alluvium.
The scaled
heights of burst ranged from -21 feet to almost 400 feet, yields ranged
from about 1 kiloton to more than 10 megatons.
Lower limits of the
particle size ranges varied from less than 0.1 um to about 12 un,
upper limits ranged from 1 pm to almost 1 mm.
The smaller ranges were
associated with the greater scaled heights of burst.

The data were correlated statistically by least-squares regression in

the log-log plane.
Values for the exponent, m, were thus obtained as
slopes of the log R-log d correlation.
The significance of the correlations were tested by means of the correlation coefficient.
The hypothesis that m # 0 was tested by means of the t-test.
The results are shown
in Table 5.

It is expected that the 739Pu/!47pm and 239Pu/!4*?pm ratios are indepen-

dent of the particle size, if plutonium behaves like a refractory species.
In that case, therefore, the expectation is that m= 0.
If plutonium is
more volatile than the rare earths, its concentration decreases more
rapidly with increasing particle size, and m< 0.
If plutonium behaves
in a more refractory fashion than the rare earths, m > 0,

565

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