OFFICIAL USE ONLY
II.

A.

GROSS ACTIVITY

Land Plants

Graph Two indicates the general levels of activity of edible
plants (pandanus, papaye, breadfruit, arrowroot) » and coconut meat and .

milk at Rongelap Atoll together with their decline of activity with
time .1?*

Tables One and Two show
first survey in February 19557

the analyses made by NRDL for the
Table Three is based on the February

1956 survey.’
Tables Four, Five and Six show the analyses by HASL.?” 6

The high initial activity of the "edible plants” (Graph Two)
was probably due to surface contamination caused by the direct fallout.
The rise in activity after « year after the fallout occurred may be due
in part to sampling and counting variances but probably results from

the ability of some plants to concentrate cst3? (see Section Radiochemical
Analysis), or may represent a condition of increased availability of the

radioactive fallout material to the plants.

Initially the activity

in the coconut milk and meat was less than other edible plants but

the rate of decline of activityhas been less than for other edible
land piants probably due to the higher percentage uptake of this
longer-lived cgtst .

5002089

Select target paragraph3