STANDARD FORM NO.64 a 1a Mares - jets Aecd tho Ww ACR tt . Office Memorandum ¢ UNITED STATES coventry TO C. W. shil1ixg $Fvevety Director Division of /Bé&dbogy Chief ehd FROM John N, Wolfe SUBJECT: fj REPORT OF BIOLOGICAL PROGRAM OF Sciences Br./ Iv. of EVEbye i October 30, 1958 ! te AA n Biology &Medicine GX PACIFIC PART/OF HARDTACK SYMBOL: DATE: es BMES : JNW You will recall that the biological program of the Pacific part of Hardtack was not presented at the ACBM meeting October 20 due, apparently, to time limitations. . SRS Since Dr. Seymour spent considerable time in finding out about these programs, I transmit the summary to you in order that you may be familiar with the program. Perhaps you may wish to send it to the members of the ACBM. qj uefare) Mie (THRY Re“jEANI1CH tC. Apoet She} Che. SEs3 G Folder Box Colle... n 25 > JL 32 (DBT) /4(STOR fn) POE RGin e COMMISSION US DOE ARCHIVES 326 U.S. ATOMIC ENERGY l. Japanese tuna samples. Fourteen hundred samples from the Japanese fishery of tuna caught between March 23 and August 20, 1958, from over 100 locations in an area extending from the equator on the south to Japan on the north and from east of the test site on the east to the Philippines on the west have been processed and counted, Tissues sampled include dark muscle, light muscle, skin, bone and a limited number of liver samples. The maximum count of gross beta for all samples was 15 d/m/g of wet liver; for muscle, the maximumwas 8 d/m/g and the average about one half this value. Practically all of the activity can be accounted for from K49 but a trace of Zn was also present. The sampling will continue until the end of October, unless requested to do otherwise, by which time 2600 samples will have been collected, I. Rongelap ecology program. This is a long range study of basic cological problems but also provides information on the current level of radioactivity in food items of the native diet and the background adiation. From the August field trip the following information, elative to Hardtack, is available. There was no apparent decline in ackground from the March values which would indicate that there may ave been a very light fallout since some decline would be expected hormally. Furthermore, tungsten was identified in Rongelap lagoon plankton and on the leaves of Scaevola. The background levels are low and for all surveys beginning in 1954 are tabulated in summary on a sheet that is in the Rongelap file. The strontium levels (strontium units) for the coconut crabs remained relatively unchanged (See Rongelap file). WLTATY22205 RAL pos ARCHIVES