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Conference object . 2024
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Article . 2024
License: CC BY NC ND
Data sources: Datacite
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Article . 2024
License: CC BY NC ND
Data sources: Datacite
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The plumes of Maralinga: Mapping nuclear fallout patterns over sixty years after atomic bomb testing

Authors: Jane Cunneen; Pat Cunneen; Pavel Jurza; Joseph Kita; Greg Street;

The plumes of Maralinga: Mapping nuclear fallout patterns over sixty years after atomic bomb testing

Abstract

The British government conducted seven nuclear bomb tests and hundreds of other tests with radioactive materials at Maralinga in South Australia during the 1950s and 1960s. Little information was made available to the Australian public at the time of the blasts, and many details of the tests are still not publicly known. Several clean-ups of the nuclear test sites, two shortly after the end of testing by the British in 1964 and 1967, and one by the Australian government in 1994-1998 following a royal commission, focused on the areas closest to the blast sites where the radioactive contamination was greatest. In this study, we show that the distribution of radionuclides following the nuclear tests at Maralinga over 60 years ago can be extracted from publicly available conventional airborne gamma-ray spectrometry data acquired in 2018. We compare two methods to extract the 137Cs and 241Am signatures. An ENE-trending plume of 137Cs contamination is visible for at least 70 km despite the relatively low spatial resolution of the regional dataset. A clear signature for 241Am, a daughter product of the plutonium dispersed by the so-called 'minor' trials, was also extracted. Our results show that, despite the clean-ups at Maralinga, radioactive material remains over an area of approximately 3000 km2 and is readily detected by regional airborne surveys designed for mineral exploration.

Keywords

nuclear tests, 152Eu (Europium 152), radiometrics, 238U( Uranium 238), airborne gamma-ray spectrometry, 137Cs (Caesium 137), 239Pu (Plutonium 239 ), Maralinga, 241Pu ( Plutonium 241), 60Co(Cobalt 60), 241Am (Americium 241), airborne

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average