ARKHANGELSK, July 14. Scientists taking part in the Arctic Floating University expedition began sampling sediment in the Barents Sea to study radioactivity. Evgeny Yakovlev, head of the Laboratory of Environmental Radiology at the Federal Research Center for Integrated Arctic Studies, the Urals Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS from aboard the Professor Molchanov research vessel that bottom sediments accumulate radionuclides, and studying them will show pollution rate in the Russian Arctic's western part.
"We study radioactivity, and bottom sediments are the environment where radioactivity is accumulating actively. Bottom sediment is formed from suspensions in the marine environment and acts as an accumulating medium. Radioactivity here is a priority environmental pollutant in the Arctic, since the Arctic was heavily exposed to radiation at a certain time. Therefore, in order to assess the Arctic ecological environment's current radioecology condition, bottom sediments are a good storage medium and they suit well our tasks," the scientist said.
Research in the Barents Sea began in 2019 under the Transarctic project, and further on the Arctic Floating University continued it. "The Arctic is getting cleaner, which is encouraging, because there are no new sources of radiation, and the Arctic is cleaning up on its own," he noted.
However, a threat of re-contamination comes from melting glaciers, where man-made radionuclides were deposited after the nuclear weapons tests on Novaya Zemlya. Glaciers gradually carry out radioactive compounds that are discharged into the sea, where they get accumulated in bottom sediments.
"We have a plan for this year to analyze bottom sediments in frontal areas of glacier discharge, in ablation zones, to see whether the trend of increasing anthropogenic radioactivity really persists. If it persists, we will note it and will monitor these works," he added.
The Professor Molchanov departed from Arkhangelsk on July 9, and the expedition will continue to August 1. The project's sponsors and partners are Russia's Ministry of Science and Higher Education, VTB Bank (the general sponsor), the Russian Geographical Society, the Norilsk Nickel Company, and the Floating University Coordination Center based at MIPT.