title: Radionuclides in the ground-level atmosphere in Vilnius, Lithuania, in March 2011, detected by gamma-ray spectrometry.
abstract: This study presents the ground-level air monitoring results obtained in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, on 14 March-14 April 2011 after the recent earthquake and subsequent Tsunami having a crucial impact on Japanese nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) on 11 March 2011. To collect representative diurnal aerosol samples a powerful sampling system ensuring the air filtration rate of 5500 m(3) h(-1) was used. The following artificial gamma-ray emitting radionuclides have been determined: (129m)Te, (132)Te (in equilibrium with its daughter (132)I), (131)I, (134)Cs, (136)Cs and (137)Cs. Activity concentration of the globally distributed fission product (137)Cs has increased from a background value of 1.6 μBq m(-3) to the value of 0.9 mBq m(-3) at the beginning of April. The activity ratio (134)Cs/(137)Cs was found to be close to 1, with a slightly higher activity of (134)Cs. The maximum aerosol-associated (131)I activity concentration of 3.45 mBq m(-3) was by four orders of magnitude lower than that measured at the same location in April-May 1986 as a consequence of the Chernobyl NPP accident. The estimated gaseous fraction of iodine-131 constituted about 70% of the total (131)I activity.
authors.affiliation: Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Institute of Physics, Savanorių Ave. 231, LT-02300 Vilnius, Lithuania. gudelis@ktl.mii.lt
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gudelis
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Druteikienė
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lujanienė
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Maceika
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Plukis
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Remeikis
mesh_terms: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis*; D008097:Lithuania; D013051:Spectrometry, Gamma
chemical_list: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive