Vertical migration of fallout 137Cs in agricultural soils from Southern Chile

Total inventories and depth distributions of atomic weapons testing fallout 137Cs were determined at four sites in Chile. Cesium inventories are always higher than previously estimated for the Southern Hemisphere and depend on annual rainfall. From the measured depth distributions cesium migration rates of < 0.5 cm/year were calculated. Modeling the 137Cs transport by the convection-dispersion equation yielded a better accordance with the measured depth distributions than the application of a compartmental model.