HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON SAMPLING PROGRAM. Quarterly Report No. 1

Technical Report · Sat Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1964

OSTI ID:4067480

Bazan, F; Feely, H

A study was made of the results of radiochemical analysis of balloon- collected filter samples. Only a small fraction of the debris from either the 1961 or 1962 Soviet test series was found to have entered the Southern Hemisphere by the middle of 1963. Very little of the debris from the 1961 Soviet test series stabilized in the stratospheric layers above 70 or 75 kft. Significant quantities of debris from the 1962 Soviet tests did stabilize in the upper polar stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere, and this debris showed no tendency fall out rapidly during 1963. Some debris from the 1962 U. S. tests reached San Angelo by June 1963 and Mildura by August 1962. Most of this debris was derived from the low altitude bursts at Christmas Island. Debris from the high altitude rocket shot Starfish Prime, indicated by the tracer nuclide /sup 109/Cd/, was encountered at Mildura at 105 kft in December 1962 and in succeeding months, and at San Angelo at 100 kft or higher in March 1983 in low concentrations and in July 1963 in higher concentrations. The /sup 109/Cd//sup 90/Sr/ ratio in this debris was so low as to suggest that the /sup 109/Cd/ yield of Starfish Prime may have been 0.055 MC or lower. Probably no debris from the 1981 Soviet tests accompanied the debris from Starfish Prime which reached Mildura, though the available data allowed an upper limit of about 31% to be put on the contribution from this source. These data did show, however, that if Soviet debris was encountered with the Starfish Prime debris at Mildura it was not derived from the Soviet tests that produced large quantities of products of neutron activation in 1961. The available data can be interpreted to indicate that vintually all of the debris from Starfish Prime that was present in the Southern Hemisphere in mid- 1963 had already moved into the stratospheric layers below 100 km. (auth)

• Research Organization: Isotopes, Inc., Westwood, N.J.
• NSA Number: NSA-18-016203
• OSTI ID: 4067480
• Report Number(s): NYO-10496
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ACTIVATION
BALLOONS
CADMIUM 109
FALLOUT
FILTERS
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY
ISLANDS
NEUTRONS
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
PACIFIC OCEAN
RADIOCHEMISTRY
SAMPLING
SEASONS
SPHERES
STRATOSPHERE
STRONTIUM 90