A University of California Daily Bruin article entitled “Remembering Chernobyl,” documents how children in Belarus happily splashed around in puddles of yellow rain having been assured by Russian authorities that it was merely pollen, when in fact it was a toxic mixture of radioactivity that had been blasted from the Chernobyl plant 80 miles away.

Thinking back to 20 years ago, it’s the splashing in yellow rainwater that Antonina Sergieff vividly recalls.

“We all jumped in the puddles with the yellow stuff. … You don’t see (it in) the air, it doesn’t materialize. But when you see the yellow dust, you see radiation,” Sergieff said.

When these elements first reached Sergieff 20 years ago, they came in the form of yellow rain.

It was not long after that residents in her hometown knew it wasn’t simply “pollen” – which is what government officials assured them, she said.

The effects of this “pollen” soon confirmed that those puddles of yellow rain contained something far more sinister, namely iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239.

Story

Uranium and Plutonium Isotopes in the Atmosphere

Y. Sakuragi: Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
J. L. Meason: Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
P. K. Kuroda: Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701

Uranium 234 and 235 were found to be highly enriched relative to uranium 238 in several rain samples collected at Fayetteville, Arkansas, during the months of April and May 1980. The anomalous uranium appears to have originated from the Soviet satellite Cosmos‐954, which fell over Canada on January 24, 1978. The uranium fallout occurred just about the time Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. The concentration of 238U in rain increased markedly after the eruption of Mount St. Helens, and it appeared as if a large quantity of natural uranium was injected into the atmosphere by the volcanic eruption. The pattern of variation of the concentrations of uranium in rain after the eruption of Mount St. Helens was found to be similar to that of plutonium isotopes.

Geochemical Journal, Vol.21, pp. 51 to 57, 1987

Oxidation States of Fallout Plutonium in Mediterranean Rain and Seawater

The measurements of the oxidation states of fallout plutonium in rainwater collected at Monaco indicate that plutonium exists predominantly in the higher oxidation states {Pu(V) and Pu(VI)}. The results obtained show that the percentage of the higher valency fraction of plutonium ranges from 38% to 89% of the total soluble plutonium in rain. The percentage tends to be lower when the storage time before the chemical treatment becomes longer. A thermodynamical computation supports these findings.

The occurrence of plutonium in the higher oxidation states in rain is considered to be one of the major causes of the characteristic geochemical stability of fallout plutonium observed in the Mediterranean Sea.

Uranyl hydroxide is a hydroxide of uranium with the chemical formula UO2(OH)2 in the monomeric form and (UO2)2(OH)4 in the dimeric; both forms may exist in normal aqueous media. Uranyl hydroxide hydrate is precipitated as a colloidal yellowcake from oxidized uranium liquors near neutral pH.

Uranyl hydroxide was once used in glassmaking and ceramics in the colouring of the vitreous phases and the preparation of pigments for high temperature firing. The introduction of alkaline diuranates into glasses leads to yellow by transmission, green by reflection; moreover these glasses become dichroic and fluorescent under ultraviolet rays.

Uranyl hydroxide is teratogenic and radioactive, and should be handled with the appropriate care.

Deposition and accumulation of plutonium isotopes in Antarctica

DATA on the deposition of plutonium isotopes are presented here from the atmosphere at Dome C (123°10'E, 74°39'S; 3,214m elevation) on the high Antarctic plateau. Plutonium isotopes are among the anthropogenic chemicals that have become global contaminants and it is, therefore, important to gain a historical perspective to their worldwide dispersion. The analysis of successive layers of permanent snow fields permits the determination of both present and historical fluxes of anthropogenic chemicals and other contaminants that are dispersed through the atmosphere.

secondly, i'm no weather expert, but tokyo (a city that has yet to be evacuated, mind you), lays about 200+ miles SSW of fukishima ... has the weather been blowing from NNE to SSW? If so, that seems like an odd weather pattern to me, but again i'm no meteorologist, so i could be completely wrong, just throwing that out there.

my guess is that the yellow rain has to do with sulfur from the volcano erupting in southern japan. SSW to NNE weather currents make much more sense to me, and seem like a much more likely culprit for the off color rain.

i'm surprised no one, unless i missed it while reading this thread, has mentioned volcanic activity as a possible cause for the this. i would think a volcano has the ability to put far more sulfur in the air than early blooming flowers & tree's do with pollen.

Besides, if this were pollen, wouldn't this happen EVERY year?

Originally posted by Silverlok
reply to post by Kailassa

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There is also the annoying fact that under high temperatures fission materials and by-products like to aerosolize in particles that generally clump around 6 micrometersand do not like to form many (if any ) particles about 10 micrometers. At 60C cesuim has about 50% aerosolization if it's in an explosion, but at temps where hydrogen is produced ( in a nuclear reactor ) 1200C it will aerosolize at almost 100% , at those same temperatures about 10% of the uranium will also be released in the single digit micrometer sizes. These substances like to bond with air and air-born moisture ( you water that heavy thing that floats in the sky occasionally ) , so given that the reactors and pools at fukushoma have been spewing radiation non-stop 24/7 for 5 weeks you may not have pure uranium rain/pollen , but get a large enough sample and there will be some along with lots of cesium.