Athmospheric deposition and soil vertical distribution of 7Be in a semiarid region of central Argentina.

LOHAIZA F.; H. VELASCO; J. JURI AYUB; M. RIZZOTTO; VALLADARES, D.

Barcelona

Conferencia; International Conference on Radioecology & Environmental Radioactivity; 2014

NRPA - Noruega

Beryllium-7 (Eγ = 477.6 keV, half-life of 53.3 days) is a potentially useful tracer of soilerosion due to single rain events and short periods of heavy rainfall. Additionally, Walling etal. (2009) have presented a new approach which provides a means of extending over severalmonths the timeframe for using 7Be measurements to estimate soil redistribution magnitudes.The aim of the present research is to estimate the 7Be atmospheric wet deposition and 7Beinventory in undisturbed soils in a semiarid region of central Argentina and explore itsseasonal variation. Poor information on 7Be atmospheric deposition and associated soilinventories in Argentina exists, particularly for the region that we are presenting here, forwhich we analyze the variability of 7Be content in rainwater and 7Be wet deposition. Usingthe 7Be monthly wet deposition the expected 7Be inventory in soil was estimated applying asimple iteration model, along an entire annual cycle (Juri Ayub et al., 2009). Finally, 7Beareal activity density along the soil profile was monthly measured (Lohaiza et al., 2013).Expected values for the 7Be content in soil obtained from the iteration models andmeasurements values were confronted and the differences are discussed.