High spatial resolution observations of 137Cs in northern Britain and Ireland from airborne geophysical survey

This study reports the 137Cs data derived from three regional and national scale High Resolution Airborne Resource and Environmental Surveys (HiRES) in northern Britain and Ireland. The detailed spatial resolution, combined with the large areas these surveys collectively cover, gives insight into large-scale deposition patterns and possible subsequent re-distribution of 137Cs on a level that was previously not possible. The largest survey area considered covers the whole of Northern Ireland. All three data sets display some clustering of higher 137Cs activities on high ground together with regional scale NNW-SSE and NW-SE banding features. We interpret these as representing a series of rainfall interceptions of the repeated passage of the Chernobyl plume. Our observations, obtained at 200 m flight line intervals, appear to provide significant detail in relation to existing knowledge of large scale along-wind deposition of 137Cs.