title: High spatial resolution observations of 137Cs in northern Britain and Ireland from airborne geophysical survey.
abstract: This study reports the (137)Cs data derived from three regional and national scale High Resolution Airborne Resource and Environmental Surveys (HiRES) in northern Britain and Ireland. The detailed spatial resolution, combined with the large areas these surveys collectively cover, gives insight into large-scale deposition patterns and possible subsequent re-distribution of (137)Cs on a level that was previously not possible. The largest survey area considered covers the whole of Northern Ireland. All three data sets display some clustering of higher (137)Cs activities on high ground together with regional scale NNW-SSE and NW-SE banding features. We interpret these as representing a series of rainfall interceptions of the repeated passage of the Chernobyl plume. Our observations, obtained at 200 m flight line intervals, appear to provide significant detail in relation to existing knowledge of large scale along-wind deposition of (137)Cs.
authors.affiliation: British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK. cemery@bgs.ac.uk
authors.forename: Cathy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scheib
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beamish
mesh_terms: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D000398:Air Pollution, Radioactive / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D047852:Chernobyl Nuclear Accident; D007494:Ireland; D011834:Radiation Monitoring; D011847:Radioactive Fallout / Q000032:analysis; D006113:United Kingdom
chemical_list: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive; D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes; D011847:Radioactive Fallout