Uptake of Plutonium by the Lobster Homarus vulgaris

Abstract

BECAUSE of its long effective half-life and its decay characteristics, and since it is deposited in bone, man-made plutonium is one of the more hazardous of the radio-elements. It is released in exceedingly small amounts from nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and in nuclear weapons tests, and, like the long-lived fission products evolved in this way, it may be detected at low concentrations in the marine environment. The concentration of plutonium by marine organisms is, therefore, of some interest. The total a-content of the edible seaweed Porphyra umbilicalis and of fillets of the plaice Pleuronectes platessa, collected near Windscale Works, are given by Dunster et al.¹. Some data on the contemporary plutonium content of Pacific Ocean sea water and the concentration factors in certain marine plants and animals collected near the southern California coast are given by Pillai et al.². The concentration factor is the ratio of the amount of plutonium per g of tissue (wet weight) to the plutonium in the same weight of sea water.