Silver-108m in Biota and Sediments at Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls

Abstract

THE occurrence¹ of the long lived silver radionuclide ^108mAg (T_½>100 yr) in biota from the Pacific Ocean has been held to suggest that the silver radionuclide ratio ^110mAg/^108mAg may be useful as a tracer of environmental processes. It also appears¹ that large amounts of ^110mAg and ^108mAg were not produced during the 1958 test series or earlier, and that the production activity ratio ^110mAg/^108mAg was 162, a ratio derived solely from the thermal neutron activation of stable silver. We consider that their observations require reconsideration.