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December 13, 2014

In September 2013 WHOI marine chemist Ken Buesseler traveled with a group of Japanese colleagues to the northeastern coast of Japan within one kilometer (one-half mile) of the damaged nuclear power plant at Fukushima. The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused four of the six reactors to overheat and efforts to cool the them resulted in large amounts of radioactive water washing into the ocean. Since then, Buesseler has worked with researchers and citizen scientists from around the world to track the movement of radiation through the Pacific. (Photo courtesy of Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)