The behavior of Sellafield-derived (super 14) C in the Northeast Irish Sea.

Abstract

Radiocarbon is an important constituent of the low level, liquid, radioactive effluent discharged from the Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in northwest England, but despite the fact that it gives the highest collective dose commitment of all the nuclides in the waste, its behavior in the Irish Sea is poorly defined. There is therefore a clear requirement for an improved understanding of (super 14) C behavior in the Irish Sea, to assist with dose evaluation modeling and definition of the mixing and accumulation characteristics of the sediment in this area. In this context, results are presented here for a temporal study of (super 14) C activities in four geochemical fractions of seawater and in a sediment core from the vicinity of the Sellafield effluent outfall. Clear (super 14) C enrichments in the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) components of seawater were observed, with temporal trends in activity that were related to variations in the Sellafield discharge. Smaller, but nevertheless detectable, enrichments were also observed for particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the seawater. The distribution of (super 137) Cs and (super 241) Am revealed that the sediment core could be classified into three zones in which the intensity of mixing decreased discontinuously with depth. Bulk carbonate (super 14) C analyses of the core demonstrated the presence of glacial or pre-glacial carbonate in the system, but failed to show any evidence of contaminant (super 14) C input or provide information on sediment accumulation processes. In contrast, analysis of bulk organic matter from the sediment provided clear evidence of the recent perturbation of a well mixed system by input of younger material, consistent with the recent input of contaminant (super 14) C from Sellafield and possibly weapons testing fallout.