Quaternary sedimentary deposits over the Chernobyl exclusión zone and their redionuclide contamination
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V.G. Radchenko [1] ; I.V. Sergyeyeva [1]
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[1] National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Ucrania
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- Localización: El Cuaternario Ibérico. Investigación en el s. XXI: VIII Reunión de Cuaternario Ibérico (Sevilla - La Rinconada 2013) / coord. por Rafael Baena Escudero, José Juan Fernández Caro, Inmaculada Guerrero Amador, 2013, ISBN 978-84-695-8601-3, págs. 236-237
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Chernobyl region is on blurred Paleogene-Neogene sediments on the slope of the ukrainian shield. Quaternary structure of the cover of the Chernobyl zone has a great significance. Destroyed 4th reactor is located directly on the upper pleistocene alluvial suite. Alluvial deposits are covered by eolian sands. Nearby and on the opposite bank of the Pripyat river is situated holocene alluvial suite. In addition, the most powerful pollution near the 4th reactor is located on the deposits of thrust moraines consisting of glaciodislocated rocks and sediments of the glacial bed. Pripyat river floodplain periodically flooded by flood waters, widely developed sandy soils which have well-filter properties. In depressions and floodplains are common sod podzolic and peat-boggy soils. Radioactive contamination of the exclusion zone by the number of 137Cs and 90Sr is 400 times greater than following the bombing of Hiroshima. In the coming year are expected to increase in groundwater the content of 90Sr. The most vulnerable to radioactive contamination is the first aquifer groundwater from the surface. Landscape features largely determine the rate of radionuclides migration. In most soils of the Chernobyl zone is about 92-98% of 137Cs deposited in the upper 0-15 cm layer. At a depth of 20-25 cm radionuclide concentration decreases sharply and reaches negligible values. However, in the floodplain soils with high ground water levels observed an intense vertical migration of radionuclides. In the coming years is expected to increase in groundwater the content of 90Sr, but its exit from zone will not lead to catastrophic concentrations in the Pripyat river. After about 50 years, will be significantly increased the concentration of 241Am and will reach its maximum. In the longer term Chernobyl zone will play a long-lived transuranic isotopes of plutonium (239Pu and 240Pu).The concentration of which will not significantly changed for many millenniums, making a significant part of this area uninhabitable for humans
