Concentrations of Gamma-Emitting Fallout Radionuclides from Picea rubens and Rhododendron maximum of the Great Smoky Mountains

The testing of nuclear bombs and the subsequent release of radioactive fallout over the past 18 years has brought many problems related to the distribution of radioactive fallout and the affect of fallout on man and on his environment. The detonation of a nuclear devise produces some 170 radioactive isotopes. From these 170 isotopes there are seven gamma-ray-emitting fission products that have a half-life of such significant length that they are important in world-wide radioactive fallout problems (Table I, adapted from Mortensen, 1961).

It was the purpose of this study to measure the amount of fission produced gamma-emitting radionuclides in certain broad leafed and needle leafed evergreen woody plants of different cover types at sites receiving different amounts of rainfall in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.