A flying atmospheric physics laboratory studying concentration of radionuclides over an Atomic Energy Commission laboratory. Instrument pod under wing samples air to provide a visual record of radioactivity.
Transferring a sample of water taken from the depths of the Columbia River for radiochemical analysis in a laboratory.
The quantities of low-level long-lived radioactivity already released into our environment will provide materials for future studies covering decades. Further, because radioisotopes are chemically similar to nonradioactive forms, observation of their biological fate will provide clues to the transport, concentration, dilution, or elimination of many other kinds of man-made toxic agents and contaminants of the environment.
Operating Concepts
Oceanographers bringing aboard a 50-gallon seawater sampler from the ocean depths find it a difficult task, even in moderate seas. This photo was taken aboard the R. V. Crawford in the Atlantic.
Environmental problems are best approached in the environment itself, where all the natural variables and unknowns are present. Laboratory work is essential, but no laboratory can carve from nature or reproduce artificially all the complexities of the natural environmental “laboratory”, the ecosystem.[6]
Environmental studies frequently demand the coordinated attentions of ecologists,[7] chemists, physicists, geologists, oceanographers, meteorologists, botanists, zoologists, and others, all working together to approach the environment as a synchronized mechanism.
Finally, environmental studies are conducted with a special consciousness of the need to withhold judgment as to what is meant by “effect”, particularly “radiation effect”. Gross, immediate effects may be determinable. Ultimate effects may be generations in the making, remote in time and space from their causes. Studies thus are focused on biological processes and on isolation and identification of the long-range trends.