Lessons from Fukushima

WHOI’s Redfield Auditorium overflowed with those who came to hear a panel of American and Japanese scientists discussing Japan’s Triple Disaster, the March 2010 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident that sent an unprecedented amount of radioactive contaminants into the ocean. WHOI marine chemist Ken Buesseler has established a Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity at WHOI and organized the Morss Colloquium on Fukushima and the Ocean on May 9, 2013. Two days later, he joined Japanese colleagues on a cruise to collect water, sediment, and biota samples three miles from the reactors at Fukushima.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)