Plutonium, (90)Sr and (241)Am in human bones from southern and northeastern parts of Poland

The paper presents the results of our study on (238)Pu, (239)Pu, (240)Pu, (241)Am and (90)Sr concentration in human bones carried out on a set of 88 individual samples of central Europe origin. Bone tissue samples were retrieved under surgery while introducing hip joint implants. The conducted surgeries tend to cover either southern or northeastern parts of Poland. While for the southern samples only global fallout was expected to be seen, a mixed global and Chernobyl fallout were to be reflected in the others. Alpha spectrometry was applied to obtain activity concentration for (238)Pu, (239+240)Pu, (241)Am, while liquid scintillation spectrometry for (90)Sr and mass spectrometry to receive (240)Pu/(239)Pu mass ratio. Surprisingly enough, and to the contrary to our expectations we could not see any significant differences in either Pu activity or Pu mass ratio between the studied populations. In both populations Chernobyl fraction proved marginal. The results on (90)Sr and (241)Am confirm similarities between the two examined groups.