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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Plankton
Tables 3 and 4 give the plankton data from 1954 to 1958, including
the values from which Table 12 of UWFL-43 (1955) was compiled. Individual plate values
appear in order to show the degree of variability,
and for 1954-1955, to permit comparison of coarse- and fine-meshed
net samples.
Radioactivity is expressed per unit weight of both wet
plankton and planktonic ash in order to assess the relative suitability of
these two bases of reporting results.
Levels of radioactivity were equally high in coarse- and in finemeshed nets.
The equality prevailed on either a wet weight or ash
weight basis among the ten pairs of simultaneous tows with coarse- and
fine-meshed nets listed in Table 3.
The higher value of the pair was
from a coarse-meshed net five times and from a fine-meshed net five
times on the ash weight basis, and the same was true on the wet weight
basis.
In only half of the cases was the specific activity higher for a
certain mesh size on both the ash and the wet basis.
vation indicates a randomness,
The above obser-
or in other words, a lack of correlation
between mesh size and specific activity.
In the Laboratory's earlier reports (AECD-3446:103; WT-616:29;
UWFL-42:31; UWFL-43:47; UWFL-46:9; UWFL-47:11), beta radioactivity