Cesium-137 in grass from Chernobyl fallout.
Grass ecosystem was monitored for 137Cs, a relatively long-lived radionuclide, for about 16 years since the Chernobyl reactor accident occurred on April 26, 1986. Cesium-137 in grass gramineae or poaceae the species, ranged from 122.9 Bq kg(-1) (September 4, 1986) to 5.8 mBq kg(-1) (October 16, 2001) that is a range of five orders of magnitude. It was observed that there was a trend of decreasing 137Cs with time reflecting a removal half-time of 40 months (3 1/3 years), which is the ecological half-life, T(ec) of 137Cs in grassland.
Papastefanou
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Department of Physics, Atomic and Nuclear Physics Laboratory, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece. papastefanou@physics.auth.gr
Manolopoulou
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Stoulos
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Ioannidou
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Gerasopoulos
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D000818:Animals; D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis* / Q000378:metabolism; D047852:Chernobyl Nuclear Accident; D006115:Greece; D006109:Poaceae / Q000737:chemistry*; D011847:Radioactive Fallout; D013051:Spectrometry, Gamma; D013997:Time Factors
D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes; D011847:Radioactive Fallout