UNIQUE DOCUME
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THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
WASHINGTON
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AGAASS
President Robert Gordon Sproul
University of California
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2 JUN 1947
Berkeley 4, California
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Dear President Spreul:
The Ravy Department, in cooperation with the War
Department and the Atomic Energy Commission, ie preparing
to send an expedition to Bikini Atoll in the nesr future to
investigate any possible long term effects of the atom bomb
explosions conducted last sumner on the organiens, the reefs
“or the felands of the Atoll.
_.
Soientists of the U.8. Geologi-
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Cel Survey, the Fish and Wild Life Service, the National .
Museun, the University of Washington, Stanford Univereity,
and the Serippa Institution of Oceanography will participate
in the expedition. It is heped to carry ont a thoroughgoing
investigation of several aspects of the biology and geology —
of this interesting and little known region. It is planned
that the expedition will leave San Diego abovt the first of
July and will be at Bikini for six weeks starting 15 July.
Radiological measurements made a few weeks after
the underwater burst last summer showed that very large amoun'
of radioactive materials had been accumulated by marine plents
growing on the reef. These plents form the baeio food supply
for the fish and marine invertebrates of the atoll; these animals aleo were found to be heavily contaminated. Available
evidence suggests that considerable amounts of radioactive
materials are still present. Presumably, sufficient time has
now @lapsed to bring about at least partial nonditions of
equilibrium which may make possible quantitative studies of
the processes involved in transfer and accumulation of radioactive substances from water and sediment to the plants and
hence to the animals. Such studies may be of great importance
in future planning for atomic defense. Moreover, the unusual
physiology and environmental conditions of both the land and
the marine plants of the atoll, sombined with the presence of
radioactive tracer substances in relatively large amounts, may
make posaible a unique contribution to basic problems of plant
‘ putrition.
In order to insure the attainment of these important
objectives radiochemical investigations must be undertaken
under the leadership ef scientists competent to deal both with
the chemistry of radioactive fissionproductsend withproblems
SIRGLE
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