ARKHANGELSK, July 8. /TASS/. Scientists of the Arctic Floating University expedition began sampling the Barents Sea bottom sediments to study their radioactivity. Bottom sediments studies are most informative for determining radioactivity dynamics in the Arctic, said Andrey Puchkov, a senior researcher at the Environmental Radiology Laboratory of the Laverov Federal Research Center for Integrated Arctic Studies (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Urals Branch)
"The focus on sampling bottom sediments will be an important aspect of this expedition," he said on board the Professor Molchanov scientific research vessel. "In previous years, specialists sampled seawater, but, from the practical point of view, bottom sediments studies are more informative. Radioactive elements and other pollutants entering the water settle and accumulate there."
Scientists analyze bottom soils as they are a natural archive of the marine environment's ecological conditions. Radiologists will compare obtained data with results of studies conducted in 2019, 2020 and 2024 to see the dynamics of changes in man-made and natural radionuclides' activities in bottom sediments.
"The Arctic ecosystem is very fragile. Its buffering abilities are extremely low, so it is very difficult for it to withstand various types of pollution, including radioactivity," the laboratory's leader Evgeny Yakovlev said. "Given the multiplicity of existing man-made sources of radiation (tests on Novaya Zemlya archipelago, explosions and accidents in other regions of the planet), we continue studying in which environments radiation is concentrated and absorbed."
