Environmental monitoring of the atmosphere over the Southern Ocean

The United States Department of Energy - Environmental Measurements Laboratory located in New York City has been monitoring the naturally occurring and man-made radionuclides for the past 40 years throughout the world. We have been using simple and very rugged air sampler which collect air from the surrounding environment. With this method and diverse location of sampling stations we have been able to detect with gamma counting method Beryllium 7, lead 210 as natural radionuclides and also some anthropogenic or man-made radionuclides such as Zirconium 95, Cesium 137, Cerium 144 which half-lives are fairly long. Come to visit us at: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/NAMP/EMLLegacy/index.htm and search for databases especially Surface Air Sampling Program.

The Surface Air Sampling Program (SASP) database provides information on EML's archived air filter samples and sample measurements. The program was established in 1957 to track the global dispersion of radioactive debris resulting from atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs. Air filter samples were collected at locations throughout the world and analyzed for nuclear debris. In the 1980's, the program focused on the global distributions of the naturally occurring radionuclides, beryllium-7 and lead-210. The resulting database is the most comprehensive and extensive record of its kind in the world.