RADIOACTIVE CARBON
Atmosphere’s Content Doubled (NJS. Press Assoetatam) WELLINGTON, Nov. 14. The recent series of Russian nuclear explosions doubled the amount of radioactive carbon 14 present in the world's atmosphere at the time the tests started, said the director of the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (Mr T. A. Rafter) today. The latest Russian tests had blown up an estimated total of 140 megatons of nuclear fission products, he said. They had doubled the amount of carbon 14 and tritium present in tbe world's atmosphere before the atomic bomb tests were first begun during the Second World War.
As the nuclear debris from the testa drifted on to New Zealand, the unradiated carbon 14 from the explosions would be traced in a number of ways.
A tree breathing carbon dioxide gas, also took in a proportion of carbon 14 and tritium, and this became part of each of the tree’s annular rings. Working on the wood from individual rings, the institute could gauge the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere in any given year, and thus identify the age of the tree, and when the increases of carbon 14 froja nuclear tests were incorporated in its growth. This would show when the first nuclear debris reached New Zealand.
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Press, Volume C, Issue 29671, 15 November 1961, Page 14
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210RADIOACTIVE CARBON Press, Volume C, Issue 29671, 15 November 1961, Page 14
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