ABSTRACT

Three sections of subject matter are combined in this paper.

Section I shows the pattern of radioactive decay over periods of
about six years for 102 samples from Eniwetok Atoll, plus 2 sand
samples from Nevada.

from -1.2 to -1.8.

Logarithmic plots commonly had slopes of

The slopes for the last three years tended to be

steeper and to show morevariability than for the first three years.
An exceptionally slow rate of decay, -0.06, prevailed for the last
three years in a sample of rat muscle where Cs137 was almost the
only radioisotope.

Slow decays occurred in muscle, liver, bone,

and kidney of various animals.
In Section II, available data on plankton from Rongelap Atoll for
1954-1958 are brought together, including not only values based on
wet weight as reported earlier, but also new values computed on the

basis of ash weight of sample, which gave more consistent results.
Mesh size did not influence activity levels of the plankton samples.
For August 1958,

the amount of activity in 10 pumped plankton

samples was shown not to be correlated with the activity of samples

of lagoon bottom material taken at the same stations.

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