Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast [View all]

[bathroommonkey76]

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.

But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

He spoke Tuesday in Salt Lake City at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, attended by more than 4,000 researchers this week.

The results are for water samples taken in June, about three months after the power plant disaster, Buesseler said. In addition to thousands of water samples, researchers also sampled fish and plankton and found cesium-137 levels well below the legal health limit.

Read more here:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_FUKUSHIMA_OCEAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-02-21-15-59-17