goat by Stanley and Mullen, the curium was excreted more rapidly.
Shortly after injection, the percentage of the administered curium dose
in the biological samples was higher than the plutonium values, based on
percent per kilogram basis.
Sutton et aZ. also reported on an investigation of transport and retention
of 238py in calves fed in vivo labeled milk vse prepared in vitro labeled
milk. This experiment will provide information on the relative biological
availability of plutonium in the two experimental groups of animals.
The cows which received the citrate-buffered plutonium-238 nitrate were
also sampled for uptake. Results of these experiments will be provided
in a future NAEG document as data were not available at the time of the
reporting session.

Small vertebrate investigations for NAEG are performed by University of

Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), at NTS and the Tonopah Test Range.

Data on

rodents and lizards from NAEG safety-shot sites, NTS, are presented in
this report. Moor and others at UNLV reported lower carcass burdens of

233pu and “41am than pelt or G.I. tract burdens by a factor of 102,

Hematologic studies of rodents from the NTS and TTR areas are currently
under way.
Methodology and preliminary analyses are discussed.
Moore et al. report
that some of the changes in NTS soil chemistry environments may be due
to animal burrow environments.
They suggest that soluble nutrients,
gases, humidity, and temperatures are at levels which are more conducive

for maintenance and growth of microorganisms than surface soil areas.

Animal burrows, of course, are difficult areas to study in that many
factors are involved.
Mechanical stabilization of burrow areas for

easier sampling (e.g., freezing tunnels for easier and more discrete

soil samples), sampling that is meaningful, individual species of small
vertebrate habits study, biological inventories of microhabitats, and
food sources are a few such factors, not to mention radiochemical variance
in differing environments.

Preliminary synthesis of some of the data generated in the various

safety~shot areas studied by NAEG has been begun by several investigators.
Until recently, field measurements of the concentration of Pu in various
ecosystem components were the primary objective of most of the NAEG
investigations as a beginning step toward providing information for an
ecosystem model for the transport or movement of Pu in the environment.
Gilbert, NAEG statistician, presents efforts by several of the NAEG

program investigators to synthesize the 239°240pby data currently available
from Area 13, NTS (an NAEG safety-shot study site). Data on soil,

vegetation, small vertebrates, large vertebrates, and air concentrations
previously reported are combined within single graphs in order to evaluate
trends or information not obvious by other means of presentation.
The

limitation of few numbers of animal data from the Area 13 grazing study

to date causes restricted interpretation.
However, it is evident that
the lowest concentration in cow tissues is in muscle, and the highest in
hide and hair.
Statistical analysis indicates that lung concentrations

320
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