STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF "A SITE" DATA AND
INTERLABORATORY COMPARISONS FOR THE NEVADA
APPLIED ECOLOGY GROUP
R.
O.
Gilbert and L.
L.
Eberhardt
Battelle Memorial Institute
Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Richland, Washington
ABSTRACT
Preliminary estimates of the inventory of
235
U and
238
U in surface
(0-5 em) soil of A Site in Area 11 of the Nevada Test Site (NTS)
are 1,045 + 274 (+ S.E.) and 10,500 + 1,150 grams, respectively.
The
inventory of 2354 due to the device alone: i.e., after subtracting
off the estimated inventory of natural
U » is estimated to be
983 + 274 grams. The like estimate for 238 U is 1,920 + 1,150 grams.
239-240 Pu in surface soil for A Site is
The estimated inventory of
0.0347 + 0.012 curies. Average concentrations of 2354, 238) , and
239-2405, are estimated for both soil and vegetation. The ratio of
these means (vegetation/soil) for
235 decrease from 0.16 to 0.0039
with decreasing distance from ground zero. The decrease is from
0.028 to 0.0066 for 2385. The concentrations of 2344 and 236y for
vegetation are about 100 times less than for 235 U or 238y for vegeta-
tion.
The data from four profile samples are plotted and show the
rapid decline in concentrations of 2354 with depth.
This does not
238 U, however, presumably because most 238 U present is
occur with
natural uranium,
Data are presented to compare 239-2405, concentrations in ‘''ball-mill"
versus "sieved" (<100 mesh) soil fractions from soil samples analyzed
by two laboratories. Most data examined here via simple regression
techniques suggest that for soil samples collected in relatively-high-
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