Anthropogenic uranium signatures in turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles from nuclear sites
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Issue Date
2023-08-22Author
Conrad, Cyler
Inglis, Jeremy
Wende, Allison
Sanborn, Matthew
Mukundan, Nilesh
Price, Allison
Tenner, Travis
Wurth, Kimberly
Naes, Benjamin
Fair, Jeanne
Middlebrook, Earl
Gaukler, Shannon
Whicker, Jeffrey
Gerard, Jamie L
Aguilera, Washington Tapia
Gibbs, James P
Wolf, Blair
Kattil-deBrum, Tonie K
Hagemann, Molly
Seminoff, Jeffrey A
Brys, Timothy
Brown, Rafe
Derieg, Katrina M
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of National Academy of Sciences.
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Show full item recordAbstract
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 (235U and 236U) 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).
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Citation
Conrad C, Inglis J, Wende A, Sanborn M, Mukundan N, Price A, Tenner T, Wurth K, Naes B, Fair J, Middlebrook E, Gaukler S, Whicker J, Gerard JL, Aguilera WT, Gibbs JP, Wolf B, Kattil-deBrum TK, Hagemann M, Seminoff JA, Brys T, Brown R, Derieg KM. Anthropogenic uranium signatures in turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles from nuclear sites. PNAS Nexus. 2023 Aug 22;2(8):pgad241. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad241. PMID: 37614675; PMCID: PMC10443656
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