Chemical and geochemical studies off the coast of Washington. Progress report, September 1979-August 1980

Technical Report · Fri Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1980

OSTI ID:5022006

Carpenter, R ^[1]

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1. comp.

This report summarizes progress from September 1979 through August 1980 on a series of marine chemical and geochemical investigations involving both laboratory studies and field studies off the coast of Washington. Most of our field work the past few years has been on the Washington continental shelf, slope, and the submarine canyons indenting the shelf north of the Columbia River. Our aim is to provide basic data required to characterize underlying chemical and physical processes and their rates which control the distributions, concentrations, and ultimate fate of some of the potentially hazardous agents associated with fossil fuel and/or nuclear power production or transportation. The main lines of investigation are: (1) field studies of the uptake and transport by zooplankton fecal pellets of /sup 210/Po, /sup 210/Pb, and other trace inorganic and organic constituents in a well-studied part of Puget Sound; (2) studies of the behavior of /sup 210/Po and /sup 210/Pb in sediments off the coast of Washington and the application of the /sup 210/Pb determinations in sediment cores to determine sediment accumulation rates for the past 100 years, the depth of the surface mixed layer, and a mixing coefficient for the surface sediments; (3) determinations of the /sup 239, 240/Pu and /sup 238/Pu activities in sediments of the region in which we have already determined /sup 210/Pb activities, to learn more about Pu cycling in this region and to check the depth of surface sediment mixing and accumulation rates inferred from the /sup 210/Pb measurements; and (4) investigations of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons in some of the same samples of organisms and sediment cores whose accumulation histories for the past 100 years we have determined with the /sup 210/Pb technique.

• Research Organization: Washington Univ., Seattle (USA). Dept. of Oceanography
• DOE Contract Number: AT06-71EV70024
• OSTI ID: 5022006
• Report Number(s): DOE/EV/70024-T2; ON: DE86000519
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

520200 -- Environment
Aquatic-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
520302* -- Environment
Aquatic-- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport-- Aquatic Ecosystems & Food Chains-- (-1987)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDE NUCLEI
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
AQUATIC ORGANISMS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS
BIOLOGICAL WASTES
COASTAL WATERS
CONTINENTAL MARGIN
CONTINENTAL SHELF
CONTINENTAL SLOPE
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
FECES
FEDERAL REGION X
HEAVY NUCLEI
HYDROCARBONS
ISOTOPE APPLICATIONS
ISOTOPES
LEAD 210
LEAD ISOTOPES
MASS TRANSFER
MATERIALS
NORTH AMERICA
NUCLEI
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PLANKTON
PLUTONIUM 238
PLUTONIUM 239
PLUTONIUM 240
PLUTONIUM ISOTOPES
POLONIUM 210
POLONIUM ISOTOPES
RADIOISOTOPES
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
SEDIMENTATION
SEDIMENTS
SUBMARINE CANYONS
SURFACE WATERS
TRACER TECHNIQUES
USA
WASHINGTON
WASTES
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
ZOOPLANKTON