Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 17-1. Decay of the dose rate of radiation from fallout, taken from the time of detonation, not from the time
of deposit on the ground or in water.
Source: Cresson H. Kearny, Nuclear War Survival Skills
Fallout-contaminated clothing should be shaken off regularly and before entering your
shelter. Washing in contaminated water is better than nothing, but it is preferable to wash in a
source of clean, uncontaminated water if available. Radiation sickness is characterized by
vomiting, loss of hair, skin burns, spontaneous bruising/hemorrhaging, plus other symptoms
typical of shock, and is usually a result of the cumulative exposure to radiation. Radiation dam-
age to the body is cumulative, meaning that it is a combination of the radiation dose rate multi-
plied by the elapsed time of exposure to radioactive sources (fallout, ingested materials, etc.).
There is no way of knowing exactly how much radiation one has been exposed to unless one is
wearing a high-tech “dosimeter,” (see sources in
appendix 2
) which indicates cumulative ex-
posure to radioactivity, or unless one has made a low-tech homemade “Kearny Fallout Meter”
(KFM), which I will talk about more a little later in this chapter.
The new standard for measuring radiation is the millisievert, or sievert (1 sievert is equal to
1,000 millisieverts). Previously, radiation levels and exposure were typically measured in
Roentgens (R), rads (radiation absorbed dose) and rems (roentgen equivalent man). Roentgens
were the original measure of radiation, named after the German physicist who discovered X-
