-l4the pre-Mike tests and the Bikini tests of 1954 together contributed about 5 per cent of the total sr90 activity.

Sr?° on the island 1s being maintained at an essentially
constant level (decreasing only with physical decay),

if the omni-

vorous hermit crab can be considered an accurate index of biologically available strontium.

However, the ratio of the

strontium

in the crab skeleton to that in food items is not known.
from the meager data presently available,

Judging

the radiostrontium con-

tent of the crab skeleton is more than ten times that in
plants on a wet weight basis and is more than

land

three times .that

in soil on a dry weight basis.
Muscle

Isotopes with half lives greater than 20 years contributed

nearly all of the activity in muscle tissue 35 days before
Nectar test.

the

Csi37, gr9, x, and Cel tty ppl ts accounted for 84,

10 and 1 per cent respectively, of the total activity in muscle
tissue collected in February and November, 1955, and analyzed in

January and March, 1956.

Similar levels, 67, 19, and 1 per cent,

were found in coconut crab muscle from Rongelap Atoll (UWFL-43,
Table 14).

In contrast to the exoskeleton, muscle tissue had 4

variable, though generally decreasing, level of

long-livedDOE ARCHIVES

isotopes throughout the post-Nectar collecting period (Pig. 6).
Between 150 and 200 days post-Nectar,

the total activity

in

muscle was due primarily to the long-lived isotopes as evidenced
by the increased ecological half life.

The level of total ac-

tivity in muscle at 172 days (after Nectar) is one-sixth the
pretest level, while the

level of long-lived

isotopes at that

Ve

Select target paragraph3