Deliberate Tracers

The surface area per unit of mass (or volume) of coarse sediment is typically too small to support measurable radionuclide activities. Therefore through a collaboration with Ilhan Olmez and Frank Pink (MIT) we developed a pair of deliberate tracers that can be used in studies of physical and biological sediment transport (Olmez et al., 1994; Wheatcroft et al., 1994). The technique involves the thermal (high temperature) diffusion of noble metals (gold and silver) into the crystalline matrix of natural particles (mainly quartz grains). After deployment in the field the tracers are enumerated at PPM and PPB concentrations using instrumental neutron activation analysis.

Deliberate Tracers The surface area per unit of mass (or volume) of coarse sediment is typically too small to support measurable radionuclide activities. Therefore through a collaboration with Ilhan Olmez and Frank Pink (MIT) we developed a pair of deliberate tracers that can be used in studies of physical and biological sediment transport (Olmez et al., 1994; Wheatcroft et al., 1994). The technique involves the thermal (high temperature) diffusion of noble metals (gold and silver) into the crystalline matrix of natural particles (mainly quartz grains). After deployment in the field the tracers are enumerated at PPM and PPB concentrations using instrumental neutron activation analysis.

Deployment of tracers (glass beads) from the submersible Alvin.