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Italy built and commissioned 4 nuclear power plants between 1958-1978, which delivered a total of 1500 MW. All four were closed down after the Chernobyl accident following a referendum in 1987. One of the plants was Garigliano, commissioned in 1959. This plant used a 160 MW BWR1 (SEU of 2.3 %) and was operational from 1964 to 1979, when it was switched off for maintenance. It was definitively stopped in 1982, and is presently being decommissioned. We report here details on the chemistry procedure and on the measure- ments for soil samples, collected up to 4.5 km from the Nuclear Plant. A comparison between uranium ( 238 U) concentration as determined by means of AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) and by ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry) techniques respectively at the ANU (Australian National University) and at the Ecowise company in Canberra, Australia, is reported, as well as 236 U and 239,240 Pu concentration results detected by AMS. 236 U/ 238 U and 240 Pu/ 239 Pu isotopic ratios by means of AMS are also provided. A contamina- tion from Chernobyl is visible in the 137 Cs/ 239+240 Pu activity ratio measurements.

A catchment level study to obtain soil formation rates using beryllium-10 (10Be) tracers has been undertaken in the Daly River Basin in the wet-dry tropics of northern Australia. Three soil cores have been collected to bedrock, with depths ranging from ∼1-3.5 m. Due to agricultural practices, modern soil loss rates can be significantly higher than long-term soil formation rates, but establishing soil formation rates has proved to be a difficult problem. At long-term equilibrium, however, soil formation from the underlying rock is balanced by soil loss from the surface. This long-term rate at which soil is being lost can be determined using the cosmogenic tracer 10Be, created in spallation of atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen by cosmic rays. Since the annual fallout rate of 10Be is known, the complete 10Be inventory over the depth of the top soil can be used to establish the soil formation rates.

The Daly River drains a large (52500 km 2 ) and mainly undisturbed catchment in the Australian wet-dry tropics. Clearing and cropping since 2002 have raised concerns about possible increased sediment input into the river and motivated this study of its fine sediment sources. Using 239 Pu as a tracer it is shown that the fine sediments originate mainly from erosion by gullying and channel change. Although the results also indicate that the surface soil contribution to the river channel sediments from sheet erosion has increased to 5-22% for the Daly River and 7-28% for the Douglas River (a tributary of the Daly River) in 2009 vs. 3- 6% for the Daly River and 4-9% for the Douglas River in 2005. This excess top soil likely originates from the cleared land adjacent to the Daly River since 2005. However, channel widening largely as a result of hydrologic change is still the dominant sediment source in this catchment.

The isotopes 239 Pu and 240 Pu are present in surface soils as a result of global fallout from nuclear weapons tests carried out in the 1950's and 1960's. These isotopes constitute artificial tracers of recent soil erosion and sediment movement. In practice the high throughput capabilities and high sensitivity of the AMS technique makes the study of Australia's geographically large areas viable using Pu isotopes. As part of its weapons development program the United Kingdom carried out a series of atmospheric and surface nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga, South Australia in 1956 and 1957. The contribution from the Maralinga tests to the Pu isotopic abundances present in the region around Maralinga is largely unknown. In global fallout, for example, the 240 Pu/ 239 Pu ratio is typically in the range 0.17 - 0.19, but the influence of the regional tests could lead to values outside this range. This would impact on the assessment techniques used in the soil and sediment tracer studies. We report recent measurements on soil samples collected from across the Maralinga Test site.

Total iodine and129-iodine in rivers and lakes of Argentina were measured by means of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and accelerator mass spectrometry respectively. The obtained isotopic ratios, higher than the natural level, are explained as the delayed signal from nuclear weapon atmospheric tests. Besides, deposition fluences in catchment areas of the lakes are analyzed. Their latitudinal dependence, similar to the dependence of annual precipitation rates, favours wet deposition as the main 129 I fallout mechanism for this region.