In response to a special request to check the levels of radioactivity at

Aerokoj Islet, received during the survey, the land hermit crab, a known
concentrator of 30s, was collected. Since coconut crabs are both an

indicator organism and a food item, they would have been sampled instead
of hermit crabs, but coconut crabs were not found on Aerokoj.

Thousands of terns nest at Bikini Atoll, mostly on the western islets.
Both the birds and their eggs will be used as food. The terms almost always
feed at sea, outside the lagoon or reefs. On the other hand, the curlews
and turnstones feed along the shores and on the reef, and the curlew also
eats the seeds of an endemic shrub, Scaevola serica, or the beach magnolia.

Although the curlews and turnstones are transients and are present in small
numbers, at most a few hundred, they contain the highest levels of radionuclides among the birds. Curlews, turnstones, noddy terns, and fairy terns

were sampled.

Rats are not used as food but they are the only mammal living on the Atoll,
and a few were taken to determine their radionuclide content.
Groundwater was collected by driving half-inch pipe with well points into
the soil. The well-point sites on Bikini and Eneman Islands were in areas
found to be the most radioactive by the EPA/WERL personnel. On Nam I., the

well point was driven in a low area near the center of the Island. Existing

wells were sampled at Eneu. Attempts to obtain groundwater at Aerokoj were
unsuccessful. Water samples were collected from existing wells at Eneu I.
and from the cisterns constructed at Bikini I. in 1969.

In 1969, soil samples were taken by one-inch depth increments to depths of
ten inches or more near each well point. All depth increments for two sets
of samples from Eneman were anlayzed but only the surface one inch or other
sets of samples were analyzed. In addition to samples from soil pits at the
well points, surface samples also were taken at Aomen and Oroken. Sediments
from the Bravo Crater were taken by Dredge from depths of 40, 120, 140, and
160 feet.
In 1970, composite soil samples were taken to a depth of one inch from
undisturbed and disturbed areas along rows at Bikini I. and on representative transects east and west of the airstrip at Eneu I. (Figs. 1 and 2).
The subsamples combined in each composite sample were taken at intervals
of 100 paces with coring devices of 3.5 inches diameter and one-inch
depth. One north-south transect and one east-west transect were resampled
and the subsamples were retained and analyzed individually to indicate the
variability between subsamples. In the Base Camp area on Bikini Island, 16
samples were taken at 25-foot intervals on a 100 x 100-foot grid and conmbined as a composite sample. An additional 20 samples were taken and re-

tained as individual samples for gamma-ray spectrum analysis. Samples from

soil profiles were taken at well points 1, 4, and 5.

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