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Related Experiment Videos

Post-World War II uranium changes in dated Mont Blanc ice and snow.

C Barbante1, K Van De Velde, G Cozzi

  • 1Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Venice, Italy.

Environmental Science & Technology
|November 1, 2001
PubMed
Summary

Uranium levels in Mont Blanc ice cores show stable crustal contributions before the 1940s. Post-WWII ice reveals significant uranium excesses, linked to industrial mining and milling activities, not nuclear events.

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Area of Science:

  • Environmental Science
  • Geochemistry
  • Glaciology

Background:

  • Concerns exist regarding environmental contamination from uranium in weaponry.
  • A lack of historical time-series data for uranium in environmental archives hinders accurate assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To establish a historical time series of uranium concentrations in the Alps.
  • To investigate the sources of uranium contamination in environmental archives.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of a 140 m ice/snow core drilled at Mont Blanc.
  • Utilized ultraclean analytical procedures.
  • Quantified uranium concentrations using inductively coupled plasma sector field mass spectrometry (ICP-SF-MS).

Main Results:

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  • Pre-1940s ice layers show constant uranium concentrations, consistent with crustal sources.
  • Post-World War II ice layers exhibit significant uranium excesses above crustal contributions.
  • No uranium enhancement was observed in the ice layer corresponding to the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

Conclusions:

  • Post-WWII uranium excesses are attributed to tropospheric dust transport from mining and milling operations in East Germany and France.
  • The study provides a crucial historical record of uranium deposition in the Alps.
  • Environmental uranium contamination is linked to industrial activities rather than specific nuclear events like Chernobyl.