RAPID: Time Series Sampling for Radionuclide and Biogeochemical Fluxes at F1 Time-series Station, Offshore Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Facility

RAPID：福岛第一核电站海上 F1 时间序列站放射性核素和生物地球化学通量的时间序列采样

• 批准号: 1139902
• 负责人: Chris German
• 金额: $ 19.98万
• 依托单位: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-07-01 至 2014-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1139902&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Time; Series; Sampling; Radionuclide

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake off Japan resulted in a tsunami that severely damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power facility. Emergency cooling using seawater, in response to overheating of the facility?s reactor units 1, 2 and 3 and uncontained spent fuel pools, has led to run-off of contaminated waters to the adjacent Pacific Ocean that, cumulatively, measure 10,000 higher than pre-tsunami levels and exceed the release of radionuclides to the marine environment from Chernobyl accident. With funding through this Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID), a research team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will participate in a JAMSTEC-led cruise in June-July 2011, and deploy a time-series sediment trap mooring at a station 80km off the coast of Japan. The specific goal will be to collect settling particulate radionuclide matter over the coming weeks and months through to an already-scheduled cruise to recover the moorings in May, 2012. By deploying traps at 500m and 1000m, the team will intercept particle-attached radionuclide settling out of the upper ocean and assess their fluxes into the deep ocean interior. They will collect fresh samples approximately every 2 weeks at each depth throughout the sampling period to complement ?snap-shot? sampling that will be conducted aboard the JAMSTEC cruise at the start and end of the deployment period.The team will also collaborate closely with Dr. Ken Buessler at WHOI (already funded separately, including a complementary NSF-RAPID project) who will be responsible for radionuclide analyses of particulate samples at no additional cost to this proposal. This project will handle preparation, deployment and recovery of the time-series sediment trap mooring as well as preliminary sample splitting, characterization of samples for biogeochemical properties and sample archiving. Radionuclides of primary interest at this time include 137Cs, 134Cs, 106Ru, 144Ce and 147Pm; other species (e.g. Pu isotopes) may also prove to be of interest within the lifetime of the deployment. Thus an important part of the project will also be to stand ready to provide further splits of these well characterized samples to US, Japanese and other interested international research groups in the future, as need arises. Broader Impacts: As learned in the aftermath of Chernobyl, establishing the distributions and activities of radionuclides present in the environment as soon as possible post-release is important to understanding the severity of the releases that have occurred, their implications for public health, and to establish "time zero" conditions against which the wider oceanographic community can subsequently track the fate of long-lived (conservative and biogeochemically-active) radionuclides. In addition to the strong international (WHOI-JAMSTEC) collaboration that has already been developed for this project, the team will share all data (banked with BCO-DMO at Woods Hole) and samples collected by this work with the wider national and international science community and public.

2011年日本东北部地震引发的海啸严重破坏了福岛第一核电站。使用海水应急冷却，以应对设施过热？由于切尔诺贝利核电站1、2和3号反应堆机组和无密封乏燃料池的泄漏，受污染的沃茨流入邻近的太平洋，累计比海啸前的水平高出10 000倍，超过了切尔诺贝利事故向海洋环境释放的放射性核素。利用这一快速反应研究赠款提供的资金，伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的一个研究小组将参加2011年6月至7月由日本海洋气象技术专家委员会牵头的一次巡航，并在距离日本海岸80公里的一个观测站部署一个时间序列沉积物捕集器系泊系统。具体目标将是在今后几周和几个月内收集沉降的放射性核素微粒物质，直到已经排定的2012年5月恢复系泊系统的巡航。通过在500米和1000米处部署陷阱，该团队将拦截从上层海洋沉降出来的附着粒子的放射性核素，并评估它们进入深海内部的通量。在整个采样期间，他们将在每个深度大约每两周采集一次新鲜样本，以补充？快照？该小组还将与世界卫生组织的Ken Buessler博士密切合作（已单独供资，包括一个补充性的国家科学基金快速项目），后者将负责对微粒样品进行放射性核素分析，本提案不增加任何费用。 该项目将处理时间序列沉积物收集器系泊装置的准备、部署和回收，以及初步样品分离、样品地球化学特性表征和样品存档。目前主要关注的放射性核素包括137 Cs、134 Cs、106 Ru、144 Ce和147 Pm;其他核素（例如Pu同位素）也可能在部署的寿命内被证明是值得关注的。因此，该项目的一个重要组成部分也将是随时准备在未来需要时向美国，日本和其他感兴趣的国际研究小组提供这些表征良好的样品的进一步分离。更广泛的影响：正如切尔诺贝利事故后所了解到的那样，在释放后尽快确定环境中放射性核素的分布和活动，对于了解已发生的释放的严重性、其对公众健康的影响，并建立“时间零点”条件，使更广泛的海洋学界能够随后跟踪长期生存的（保守的和地球化学活性的）放射性核素。除了已经为该项目开展的强有力的国际（WHOI-JAMSTEC）合作外，该团队还将与更广泛的国家和国际科学界和公众分享所有数据（与伍兹霍尔的BCO-DMO一起储存）和这项工作收集的样本。