Emily
Editor, Senior Moderator
Cyler Conrad, Jeremy Inglis, Allison Wende, Matthew Sanborn, Nilesh Mukundan, Allison Price, Travis Tenner, Kimberly Wurth, Benjamin Naes, Jeanne Fair, Earl Middlebrook, Shannon Gaukler, Jeffrey Whicker, Jamie L Gerard, Washington Tapia Aguilera, James P Gibbs, Blair Wolf, Tonie K Kattil-deBrum, Molly Hagemann, Jeffrey A Seminoff, Timothy Brys, Rafe Brown, Katrina M Derieg, Anthropogenic uranium signatures in turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles from nuclear sites, PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 8, August 2023, pgad241, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad241
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/8/pgad241/7244772
Abstract
Chelonians (turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles) grow scute keratin in sequential layers over time. Once formed, scute keratin acts as an inert reservoir of environmental information. For chelonians inhabiting areas with legacy or modern nuclear activities, their scute has the potential to act as a time-stamped record of radionuclide contamination in the environment. Here, we measure bulk (i.e. homogenized scute) and sequential samples of chelonian scute from the Republic of the Marshall Islands and throughout the United States of America, including at the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, southwestern Utah, the Savannah River Site, and the Oak Ridge Reservation. We identify legacy uranium ([SUP]235[/SUP]U and [SUP]236[/SUP]U) contamination in bulk and sequential chelonian scute that matches known nuclear histories at these locations during the 20th century. Our results confirm that chelonians bioaccumulate uranium radionuclides and do so sequentially over time. This technique provides both a time series approach for reconstructing nuclear histories from significant past and present contexts throughout the world and the ability to use chelonians for long-term environmental monitoring programs (e.g. sea turtles at Enewetok and Bikini Atolls in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and in Japan near the Fukushima Daiichi reactors). chelonian, radionuclide, uranium, plutonium, nuclear fallout
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/8/pgad241/7244772
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/8/pgad241/7244772
Abstract
Chelonians (turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles) grow scute keratin in sequential layers over time. Once formed, scute keratin acts as an inert reservoir of environmental information. For chelonians inhabiting areas with legacy or modern nuclear activities, their scute has the potential to act as a time-stamped record of radionuclide contamination in the environment. Here, we measure bulk (i.e. homogenized scute) and sequential samples of chelonian scute from the Republic of the Marshall Islands and throughout the United States of America, including at the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, southwestern Utah, the Savannah River Site, and the Oak Ridge Reservation. We identify legacy uranium ([SUP]235[/SUP]U and [SUP]236[/SUP]U) contamination in bulk and sequential chelonian scute that matches known nuclear histories at these locations during the 20th century. Our results confirm that chelonians bioaccumulate uranium radionuclides and do so sequentially over time. This technique provides both a time series approach for reconstructing nuclear histories from significant past and present contexts throughout the world and the ability to use chelonians for long-term environmental monitoring programs (e.g. sea turtles at Enewetok and Bikini Atolls in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and in Japan near the Fukushima Daiichi reactors). chelonian, radionuclide, uranium, plutonium, nuclear fallout
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/8/pgad241/7244772