Download AJ Timothy Jull1.2, Ching-Chih Chang1,2*, George S

A. J. Timothy Jull1.2, Ching-Chih Chang1,2*, George S Burr1,3,
Joellen L. Russell2, Dana Biddulph1, Lara White1, Nancy G
Prouty4, Yue-Gau Chen5, Chuan-Chou Shen5, Weijian
Zhou6, Doan Dinh Lam7
1 NSF-Arizona
AMS Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
2 Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
3 Department of Oceanography, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
4 US Geological Survey Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
5 Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
6 Shaanxi Province Key Laboratory of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Institute of Earth
Environment, CAS, Xi’an 710043, China
7 Institute of Geology, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam
1. Iodine-129 is a long-lived radionuclide with a halflife of 15.7 million years.
2. It has been shown to be a useful tracer for
environmental research due to in part to its high
mobility in nature and significant anthropogenic
production (Edwards, 1962; Muramatsu and
Ohmomo, 1986; Santschi et al., 1996; Raisbeck et
al., 1995; Schmidt et al., 1998; Hou et al., 2009;
Povinec et al., 2010).
There are two natural production pathways for 129I:
1) by spontaneous fission of 238U
2) 2) by the interaction of cosmic-rays with xenon in
the atmosphere;
3) Pre-bomb 129I/127I values between 5 x 10-13 and 1.5
x 10-12 (Fabryka-Martin et al., 1984; Moran et al.,
1998; Edmonds et al., 1998; Biddulph et al., 2006).
Since the nuclear era began, anthropogenic 129I
sources have overwhelmed natural production.
These are dominated by nuclear fuels
reprocessing activities, but also include aboveground nuclear testing and accidents.
Sources, inventory and releases of 129I in natural samples
(from Hou et al. 2009; Hu et al. 2010).
Source
Inventory/releas
e (kg)
250
Natural sources
57
Nuclear weapons testing
5200
Marine discharge by
European reprocessing up
to 2007a
129I/127I in environment
10-12
10-11 to 10-9
10-8 to 10-6
(North Sea and Baltic Sea)
Atmospheric discharge
from European
reprocessing up to 2007a
440
10-8 to 10-6
(in rain, lakes and rivers in western
Europe)
Atmospheric releaseb
from Hanford
reprocessing
275
10-6 to 10-3 (into air near Hanford)
Columbia River release
from Hanfordb
~167
10-6 to 10-3 (estimated from 131I)
129I
129I
in the ocean environment
time series from archived seaweed samples (modified from Yiou et al., 2002).
Utsira (59oN, 5oE), Kiberg (70oN 31oE) and Ingoy (71oN 24oE) are sites along the
coast of Norway. 1 IU = 1×10-10 129I/127I.
Adapted from Hou et al. 2010)
129I
in Modern Corals (Biddulph et al. 2006)
Adapted from Bautista et al. 2016
Xisha Islands
Con Dao
Parola Island
Chang et al. (2016)
J. Env. Radioact.
165: 144-160
From Baustista et al.
(2016), J. Env. Radioact.
164: 1-8.
CTBTO map (UNSCEAR, 2000)
A nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (1FNPP),
Japan occurred in March 2011 due to the failure of cooling system after the
Tohoku earthquake and Tsunami on 11th March 2011.
Significant quantities of radioactive materials were emitted into
the atmosphere from 12th March through 24th March, with estimated
atmospheric releases of 150-160 PBq of 131I and 10-15 PBq of 137Cs.
Guilderson et al. (2014), Biogeosciences, 11, 4839–4852, 2014
(Povinec et al. 2013)
Fukushima 129I plume in June 2011 (Hou et al., in press)
1. Since June 2011, we have been sampling seawater
on a biweekly basis - from the inlet pipe of the Stephen
Birch Aquarium for 129I levels, which is located at the end
of the Scripps Institution pier.
2. We have also been collecting occasional samples at
Kaoshiung, Taiwan.
3. Other point or monitored locations are at Long Beach
and Santa Barbara (California) and point sampling has
been done on the Oregon coast and Alaska.
Many colleagues at the University of Arizona
This work was supported in part by a grant from the
National Science Foundation, EAR1313588.