Deposition of long-lived radionuclides after the chernobyl accident in the forestal massif of boreon

After the reactor accident at Chernobyl, samples of soil, moss, lichen and fern were collected in the forest around the Vesubie valley in the South East of France and analyzed by low energy photon and gamma spectrometry. Activity concentrations as high as 42.8, 9.4 and 3.8 kBq.m^–2 were measured for¹³⁷Cs,¹³⁴Cs and¹⁰⁶Ru, respectively, in soil, in October 1988.¹²⁵Sb and^110mAg were also detected. The contamination was found to be the most important between 1400 and 1700 m altitude.