Image

A Little Background

February 6, 2015

A remotely controlled “JetYak” surface vehicle leaves a beach on Bikini Atoll recently during a trip by WHOI chemists Ken Buesseler and Matt Charette. Use of the JetYak is led by Chip Breier, who equipped it with a system that collects samples of cesium isotopes to study the continued release of radioactive material from sites nearby where the U.S. conducted atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in the 1940s and 50s. That plus naturally occurring isotopes such as potassium-40 form the bulk of the “background radiation” against which Buesseler and others measure radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. (Photo by Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)