SCALLOPS and fish around Antarctica have been contaminated with radioactive
pollution from nuclear weapons testing and a NASA satellite accident, marine
biologists have found. Although the levels of radioactivity are not hazardous,
Antarctic marine life may be particularly susceptible, they say.
Antarctica is a largely unspoilt and pristine environment, and the Antarctic
Treaty was designed to keep it that way. Military activity is banned from the
continent as is disposing of radioactive waste on or around it. But
“long-distance transport of radioactive fallout by winds has brought a general
contamination of the ecosystem”, says Francesco Nonnis Marzano of the University…
