In a water column studied By the National Accelerator Center (CNA), an amount of uranium-236 has been discovered that exceeds by a factor of 2,5 that of other similar regions at the same latitude.
This study has been published in the journal Science of the Total Environment and it has analyzed the levels of this radioactive isotope at the DYFAMED oceanographic station located in the Ligurian Sea, a region of the Mediterranean Sea that is located between the Italian Riviera and the island of Corsica.
The study tries to find the local and regional sources of uranium-236 that have affected the waters and sediments of the area, as well as the natural processes that would have been affected by the phenomenon known as global fallout, those radioactive ones released by aerosols during atmospheric nuclear tests between the 40s and 80s.
We are facing a radioactive isotope that has aphalf-life period of 23,4 million years and that it is a synthetic radioisotope, which is one that is not found naturally on Earth and that has been created through these nuclear reactions. This is normally found in nuclear reactor emissions, whether accidental or controlled.
This study is the first to show uranium-236 data in the Mediterranean Sea and the first obtained with the CNA 1 MV AMS system. What the study finally collects is that in this area there are additional sources of the isotope and that among them, the controlled emissions from the Marcoule nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in France could be the cause; the Chernobyl accident; or from operations derived from nuclear plants located in the Mediterranean basin.
Anyway they need more studies to find out the origin of the excess uranium-236.