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Atomic Radiation and Oceanography and Fisheries 



TABLE 1 Concentration (Ppm Wet Weight) of Some Elements in Selected Organisms and in 



Some Major Rivers of the United States 



Organism i Water 2 



, ^ "• ^ 



Algae Insect larvae Fish , a ^ 



Element (Spirogyra) (Caddis fly) (Minnows) Low High 



Silicon 1,500 20 10 3 20 



Iron 6,500 300 1 <0.01 6.0 



Calcium 1,500 300 3,000 2 200 



Phosphorus 250 2,000 6,000 <0.001 1.5 



Strontium 2 0.2 0.3 



Sodium 1,500 700 1,000 1 200 



These values are only estimates of orders of magnitude. They are recorded here to illustrate differences 

 which can exist and are not intended for use in precision work. 



1 Values are from unpublished results obtained by spectrophotometric analysis at the Hanford Laboratories. 



2 Abstracted largely from Moyle (1956) and Clark (1924). 



of magnitude of the concentrations of a few of 

 the common elements in some organisms and in 

 water is shown in Table 1. However, the con- 

 centrations of particular elements in specific 

 structures or tissues of those organisms may 

 deviate widely from those values. For instance, 

 the concentration of calcium as calcium car- 

 bonate in the shells of some molluscs or that of 

 silicon in the siliceous tests of some diatoms 

 may be greater than the listed values by more 

 than one order of magnitude. 



Field studies in the Columbia River at the 

 Hanford Operation and in White Oak Lake at 

 the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have pro- 

 vided an opportunity to study the uptake and 

 accumulation of a variety of radioactive ma- 

 terials by organisms in those waters under 

 natural conditions. Omitting those radionuclides 

 which have half-lives shorter than ten hours, 

 there are measurable amounts of Na^*, Cr^^, 

 Cu*'*, F^-, As'^^, and rare earths in effluent 

 from the Hanford reactors. The composition of 

 the wastes from the Oak Ridge National Labo- 

 ratory varies from day to day but there are rela- 

 tively large amounts of Sr«», Sr^o-Y^o, Cs^", 

 Ce^**-Pr^**, Ru^f"', and other fission products 

 present at all times. In addition, there are rela- 

 tively large amounts of other radionuclides such 



as P^~ and Co''*' present on occasion. In spite 

 of this large variety of radionuclides available 

 to the organisms of these two aquatic communi- 

 ties, only a few appear to be utilized to any 

 great extent. Observed concentrations of the 

 radionuclides most frequently used by the or- 

 ganisms through their natural food webs in 

 the Columbia River and White Oak Lake are 

 listed in Table 2. From these data it is evident 

 that some elements are utilized in much greater 

 quantities than others. Rather large variations 

 occur from one collecting site to another and 

 between species, however. For example, the 

 concentration factor for P"- in filamentous algae 

 of White Oak Lake is hsted as 850,000. This 

 figure is for a sample from a large mat of 

 Spirogyra that lie on the bottom near the upper 

 end of the lake. In other parts of the lake 

 Spirogyra contained less radiomaterial. Fur- 

 thermore, radioactivity in other filamentous 

 algae, such as Oedogoniinn, was consistently 

 lower than for Spirogyra. Comparable differ- 

 ences in the amounts of radioisotopes accumu- 

 lated by the different phytoplankton and insect 

 larvae were also found. 



Very few data have been published which 

 indicate the importance of the physical and 

 chemical states of the various elements in the 



TABLE 2 Estimated Concentration Factors for Various Radionuclides in Aquatic Organisms as 

 Observed From Field Studies on the Columbia River and White Oak Lake 



Radionuclide Site 



Na^ Columbia River 



Cu"* Columbia River 



Rare Earths Columbia River 



Fe^" Columbia River 



P'^ Columbia River 



F' White Oak Lake 



Sr'^-Y™ White Oak Lake 



