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Radioactivity in the Ocean

November 19, 2018

Crew members on the Japanese research vessel Shinsei Maru deploy a “multi-corer” to collect samples of seafloor sediments just offshore from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. WHOI scientist Ken Buesseler and colleagues joined this cruise in September 2018 to continue their work measuring ongoing releases of radioactive material into the ocean from the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The researchers are assessing the consequences of the radioactivity for marine life and the fate of these materials as they are transported by ocean currents and stored in marine sediments. Buesseler is director of the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity. (Photo by Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)