More than 3,500 barrels have been found
“The challenge of our mission was to map the area where the barrels were droppedposes Patrick Chardon, nuclear metrology engineer within the CNRS. With the help of the Ulyx autonomous robot of the French oceanographic fleet, the researchers were able to venture more than 4,000 meters deep, in an attempt to find the barrels, whose waste had low radioactivity. “”From the first dive, we could see the presence of a hundred of them. This is a big surprise, because in the mid -1980s, a similar mission had only brought in the presence of six barrels“, Exclaims Patrick Chardon. During this month of mission, the Ulyx robot has taken some 5,000 photographs, making it possible to detect 3,350 barrels, 50 of which were photographed a little closer.
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The cartography of the barrels made it possible to trace the trajectory borrowed at the time by the boats which threw the containers over board. “”As the small red dots representing the barrels appeared on the map, we were able to identify the maximum concentration zones, in order to know where we were going to take“, Develops the engineer in nuclear metrology. The current means allow a finer analysis of the situation than at the end of the last century.”The surveillance operations in the area were done in a completely blind manner, they discovered some random barrels“, Specifies Patrick Chardon. Some photographs still made it possible to discover that barrels had exploded during their release.”The leaks had released radioactive elements, and the scientists had then found that no biodiversity had developed there“.
“The leaks had released radioactive elements, and the scientists had then found that no biodiversity had developed there“
A second mission to come
The researchers also carried out samples around sediment, water and fish, to better understand how the underwater world has adapted to the presence of these barrels. During a second mission, scientists will seek to determine the possible presence of traces of radioactivity within the organizations. Thus, seventeen grenadiers – a species of fish residing in the abyss and sometimes living up to 60 years – were caught. Some of them already roamed the waters of the North-East Atlantic Ocean when the barrels were dropped.
More than a thousand barrels of radioactive waste discovered in the Atlantic Ocean