129I in a sediment core offshore Fukushima: Distribution, source and its implication

Abstract

¹²⁹I released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident has been observed in the atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic environments, and it also entered the marine sediments via dispersion by sea water movement and deposition around Japan. However, there have been few studies of marine sediment cores in contrast to the large number of studies on seawater. In this work, a sediment core collected near FDNPP was analyzed for ¹²⁹I. It is observed that the ¹²⁹I/¹²⁷I atomic ratios in this sediment core are comparable to those in the seawater and sediments collected from offshore Fukushima after the accident, but 2 orders of magnitude higher than those in seawater in this region before the accident, suggesting the significant amount of ¹²⁹I has been transferred and incorporated to the offshore shallow sediments. The difference in environmental behavior between ¹²⁹I and ¹³⁷Cs is discussed based on their depth distributions in the sediment core in comparison with the grain size distribution of sediments. The peak concentrations of iodine isotopes were found in a relatively deeper layer than radiocesium. Radiocesium follows the distribution of fine grains in the sediment core, implying its high association to fine grains.

Keywords: Environmental behavior; Fukushima accident; Iodine-129; Marine sediment; Radiocesium.