Chapter H-13

• Main Authors: Commission Edited, Fallout Radioactivity, H. T. Onum, George Ann Briscoet, C. B. Briscoe!t
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: res pecti ve ly; Stoneville; Miss; Arctic; Nes; Nes’
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.638.7067; http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/pubs/ja/1970/ja_1970_odum_001.pdf

"VI e r relat ively high levels of f allollt Fe/ell /;U1t lI'e re. dis.;., cut'e red in the epiphy tic mossy f Ol'esl of ·th~ ' I,lu/ltillo i"!OUIl-tu ills during 1 962, a s urvey of the distyibution of radioac-.· t ivity il / the rain f o·rest syste m was made ldth beta coul/ling of 1500 s amples s upple mented with galllma SP£:cll'a, High levels, up to 41 38 COllllt s pe r m inute pel ' gram, u'ere f oulld mainly in or 011 green plant tis sue and the de rived lilter, ldill as much var iability amollg leaves of the same tree as bet ween trees, The degre e of uptake was correlated with epiphytic mode of growth, with algae-moss-liverwort en-cr ustations highest, massive mosses s econd, br oll1 eLiads third, alld rooted plants last, The radioactivity ill l eaves It'as f ound to be ill proport ion to the epiphyt ic g yu/d h on the leaL'cs and thus was relat ed to their age, Gum lll a s pectra u:ere s imilar in mos t mate r ials including l ea l't!s of many tre e species, lille r, termite nes t, alld the r oof algae near Sail Juall, In September 1962 a sample of epiphytic moss from the cloud-shrouded elfin forest (see Fig. 17, Chap. B-1) was examined for radioactivity and was found to have a very high speCific activity, especially for a tropical location (l8°N latitude). With primitive plants in, a rainfall regime growing between 140 and 200 in./year and with no apparenteartblysource of minerals ex-cept the rain and airborne materials, it was recog-nized that the mechanisms for binding fallout might have some of the properties ' of encrusting vegetation of the Arctic in which high levels had been estab-