RAPID: Tracking Radioactive Fallout from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Disaster in Arctic Snow

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The goal of this project is to investigate the long-range transport of radioactive material from the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor incident to sites in Alaska (Denali National Park) and Greenland (Thule and Summit Station). Fallout from the accident at these sites could potentially be used as a time marker in future studies of ice and snow samples from these areas, just as fallout from weapons testing and the Chernobyl incident are used to date samples from 1958-1963 and 1986, respectively. Such future applications rely on immediate data collection to establish the pattern and concentration of fallout, and to identify the Fukushima horizon based on "signatures" of short-lived isotopes, so that later samples collected after the shorter-lived isotopes have decayed can be identified. This study will also provide insight into transport pathways of other atmospheric materials and pollutants from Asia to Alaska and Greenland. This project incorporates the participation of several graduate students in collecting samples at all three field locations, including students enrolled in the Dartmouth Polar Environmental Change IGERT program. An undergraduate student will participate in the Alaska fieldwork and the laboratory analyses.