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French researchers have discovered radioactive chlorine, which allocate ice sheets of Antarctica. It turns out poisonous substance turned up on the southern continent as a result of ongoing tests nuclear weapons in the 1950s.
Scientists have monitored emissions of chlorine in Antarctica in places differing in rainfall. They compared the ice samples taken from a well near the Vostok station, with samples of caps Talos Dome, where the most heavy snowfalls are observed.
Experts have found that in places where there is little snow, radioactive chlorine-36 has higher concentrations, whereas in In 2008, its number was 10 times more. Researchers explained that it is not so much that would cause significant harm environment.
According to media reports, a certain amount of isotope occurs naturally when cosmic rays act on gas argon in the Earth’s atmosphere. It also occurs as a result of nuclear explosions. This isotope rose to the stratosphere and scattered throughout Earth, however, chlorine-36, formed during nuclear tests, in present in the atmosphere of the planet is not detected.
Earlier, British researchers said that processes that occur on the continent, were underestimated by scientists. Antarctica and the water surrounding it contains toxic substances that poison environment.
Andrey Vetrov
Antarctica
