A comparison of the activity in different organ
s of crabs
was made using the count found in muscle as unity.
The values
relative to muscle for other tissues in pre and post test
crabs
respectively were:
digestive system, 6 and 30; gills,
22; and exoskeleton 6 and 16.
3 and
In 40 comparisons of the shell
and soft parts of pre-test molluscs, the shells were more
radioactive than the soft parts for 25 percent,and for the other
75 percent the reverse was true.
Post Test
Invertebrates colleeted after Mike test are listed in
Table 2 of the Appendix.
Limitation of time made it impracti-
cal to search thoroughly for specimens that would have made
possible a complete comparison of collection stations aceord-
ing to species.
Since the collections were made soon after
the shot (2 to 8 days)
it may be presumed that the-distribu-
tion of radioactive materials was still in a state of flux
in the waters of the lagoon, with consequent variability in
the degree of radioactive contamination even between local
areas at a given station.
;
fhe specific activity of individual samples of inverte-
brates ranged from background at Japtan to 15,000,000 d/m/g
wet (sand from sea cucumber gut) at Engebi.
One exceptional
piece of coral detected from an autoradiograph (Fig.22b) had
a@ specific activity of approximately 100,000,000 d/m/g.
Analysis by
Area.
Differences in activity between or-
ganisms at various collecting stations depend upon the species
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36
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