Radiation From Japan Ended up in Southern California, UC San Diego Researchers Confirm

By Dennis Romero Mon., Aug. 15 2011 at 3:59 PM

Researchers at UC San Diego confirmed today that radiation from quake-and-tsunami-damaged Fukushima reactors reached Southern California.

Though other tests have determined that minuscule amounts of nuclear material reached our shores, this one was trumpeted by USCD as "the first quantitative measurement of the amount of radiation leaked from the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Japan, following the devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier this year."

So was it enough to be worried about?

Nope.

Although researchers "observed an unprecedented spike in the amount of radioactive sulfur in the air in La Jolla" off Scripps Pier 15 days after the early March quake, according to a UCSD statement, it was still not enough to make you glow, even a little.

Scripps Pier.

Author of the research, Mark Thiemens:

... The absolute amount of radiation that reached California was small. The levels we recorded aren't a concern for human health. In fact, it took sensitive instruments, measuring radioactive decay for hours after lengthy collection of the particles, to precisely measure the amount of radiation.

Gerardo Dominguez

How it happened ...

The discovery was published in today in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The lesson here? Researchers are getting good at tracking radiation from far-off places.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

Tags:

Fukushima, Japan earthquake, La Jolla, nuclear radiation, radiation, tsunami, UC San Diego, UCSD

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So many people awake to what's going on. Hopefully this radiation doesn't ruin our beautiful coast, and hopefully it doesn't take people to start dropping like flies for us to figure out the radiation is getting to us.ps...End The Fed

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Don't worry, first of all it will harm to fukushima not california!

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The editor of this site must be stoned while editing. I could do a better job. Trumpeted by USCD huh?? Ohhh, you mean University of Super Corny Dicatation? Idiots.