Carbon-14 content in tree and soil samples at the Idaho National Laboratory nuclear site

NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS & METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH SECTION B-BEAM INTERACTIONS WITH MATERIALS AND ATOMS

卷:437

Article

Ward, Jessica L.¹  Snow, Mathew S.¹  Olson, John E.¹  Ball, Duane¹  Adamic, Mary L.¹ 

[1] Idaho Natl Lab, POB 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415 USA

关键词: Accelerator mass spectrometry;    AMS;    Carbon-14;    Idaho National Laboratory;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.nimb.2018.08.047

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is a nuclear research facility located in southeastern Idaho, USA; over the course of its operational history, INL has operated 52 reactors and 1 reactor fuel reprocessing facility. To determine the extent to which previous nuclear operations at INL have impacted local environmental carbon-14 (C-14) concentrations, tree and soil samples from the INL desert and surrounding areas were collected, combusted, and analyzed by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). Transport models of the plumes from the Advanced Test Reactor Facility (ATR) and the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (ICPP) suggest the historic annual integrated plume distributions from each of these source terms was most likely in the northeast-southwest direction, with very little ground contact from stack emissions in the immediate vicinity of the facilities and maximum estimated ground contact arising similar to 400-1000 m to the northeast/southwest from each facility. C-14 data from annual growth ring data from trees located immediately adjacent to the ATR, INL's Central Facilities Area (CFA), and Mud Lake, Idaho (ML) are in statistical agreement with regional nuclear weapons testing fallout backgrounds. Surface soil samples taken near a low level radioactive disposal facility and downwind from the ICPP show percent modern carbon (pMC) values ranging from 28 +/- 2 to 92 +/- 4, suggesting a mixture of aged and modern background carbon containing materials. Taken together, these data suggest that C-14 in the INL region is predominantly derived from a mixture of aged and modern background sources (e.g. nuclear weapons testing fallout), with insignificant contributions from INL source terms.

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