Environmental Monitoring for Brunswick Town - Radiochemical Analysis/Sediment Dating
Grant
Overview
abstract
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Our group will provide radiochemical analyses on samples from cores collected and provided by UNCW (Eulie). Activity profiles of 210Pb (half-life 22.3 y) and 137Cs (30 y half-life ) will be used to assess decadal-scale sediment accumulation. Total 210Pb activity will be measured by alpha spectroscopy following the methodology of Nittrouer et al. (1979). Supported levels of 210Pb will be determined for each depth interval by measuring the gamma activity of 214Pb and 214Bi, the short-lived granddaughters of 226Ra (Cutshall et al., 1983). 137Cs will be used as a complementary radiotracer to verify the calculated 210Pb rates. 137Cs, a bomb-produced impulse tracer, is directly determined by gamma spectroscopic measurement of the 661.6 KeV gamma peak. Included in this work would be the development of an age model based on downcore samples processed.
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