66-Foot Chunk Of Dock With Japanese Signs Washes Ashore On Oregon Beach

[hatrack]

NEWPORT – A massive dock with Japanese lettering that washed ashore on Agate Beach has locals wondering if this is it – the beginning of the tsunami debris expected to arrive from Japan any day. But state officials say it much too early to know where the dock came from.

"I am refusing to speculate," said Chris Havel, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation. "There is no obvious evidence it crossed the ocean."

Havel noted that many items found on the coast have Asian lettering but did not originate in Asia. A metal placard bearing Japanese writing was found attached to the dock, and has been forwarded to the Japanese consulate in Portland.

The dock that landed on the Oregon Coast measures 66 feet long, seven feet tall and 19 feet wide. It is made of concrete and metal, contains air pockets to keep it afloat and has sheathing on top so that anyone walking on it would not slip, Havel said.





EDIT

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/06/massive_dock_potentially_tsuna.html

[Esse Quam Videri]

1. Has anyone checked it for radiation?

Might be worth doing.

[kestrel91316]

2. Not necessary. Any radioactive particles have long since been washed away. You DO

realize that exposure of inanimate objects to radiation does not make them radioactive, right?

[Texano78704]

3. Not entirely correct

Exposure of inanimate objects to radiation can make them radioactive, but it is dependent on a number of factors, like the type, strength and duration of radiation exposure as well as the elements involved.

[FBaggins]

4. Also not entirely correct.

Induced radioactivity comes usually from neutron activation. The primarily alpha/beta emitters that the dock might have been exposed to aren't going to induce radioactivity in concrete.

So yes, in theory it's possible to induce radioactivity... but that doesn't add anything to the earlier post (which correctly states that it's highly unlikely that elevated levels of radioactivity (concrete can already be radioactive depending on the sand/cement blend).

[tru]

10. a voice of reason

It appears some members of DU are not Giant Radioactive Ants in the Subways will kill us all. That's a surprise after the unscientific hysteria that was running amok in here a short while ago.

[PamW]

12. WRONG!!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

In order to turn a stable substance into a radioactive substance; you have to change the constituents of the nucleus.

That is whether something is radioactive or not is determined by how many protons and how many neutrons are in the nucleus.
You can go to a "Chart of the Nuclides" as it is called and enter the isotope ( C-14 for Carbon 14 ) and the chart will tell you whether that isotope is radioactive or not.

Let's look at the common forms of radioactivity; alpha, beta, and gamma and determine if they can affect the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. First consider gamma rays. Gamma rays are photons like light is a photon; only of higher energy. There's no protons or neutrons in gamma rays to change the constituents of the nucleus; so gamma rays can't make something radioactive.

Now consider beta rays. Beta rays are electrons. Again, there are no protons and / or neutrons in beta rays. In fact, a single proton or neutron has a mass that is 2000 times greater than the mass of an electron. So there are no protons or neutrons hiding in beta rays.

Alpha rays are alpha particles. They consist of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. However, the 2 protons give the alpha particle a charge of +2; and that positive charge is going to repel the nucleus of any target stable isotope. You can make something radioactive with alphas if you get them to really, really, high energies in a cyclotron so that the high energy can overcome the repulsion of the alpha and the nucleus.

The way non-radioactive materials are usually made radioactive is with irradiation by neutrons. If a nucleus captures a neutron, that certainly changes the constituents of the nucleus. The neutron is neutral; and therefore you don't have the problem of the nucleus repelling the neutron as it would an alpha.

So basically, you make non-radioactive materials radioactive with neutron irradiation usually within an operating reactor.

However, the radioisotopes from Fukushima are primarily fission product beta emitters; and as above, beta emitters being electrons can NOT make non-radioactive materials radioactive.

PamW

[IDemo]

5. No radiation, but a number of hitchhikers

100 Tons of 'Alien' Sea Life Wash Up With Tsunami Dock

A Japanese dock that ripped from its moorings during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and washed ashore in Oregon this week brought with it an estimated 100 tons of sea life.

Oregon State University (OSU) scientists said Thursday that there are about 13 pounds of organisms per square foot on the 66-foot-long dock, which has been traced to the Northeast coast of Japan. Tests show that the dock is not contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown after the tsunami, but it did bring with it the danger of invasive species.

http://www.livescience.com/20816-invasive-species-japanese-tsunami-dock.html

Though I'm sure the vast majority of tsunami debris is of human origin, it makes me wonder how often in Earth's history that life forms have migrated across oceans due to large tsunamis.

[flamingdem]

6. I see a Hollywood movie taking form

Mini-godzillas hitchhike on dock

[XemaSab]

7. I was finna say

that it's arguably a "natural" colonization.

[PADemD]

9. If you are sufficiently curious about the migration of life forms

You might want to read Heaven’s Breath, A Natural History of the Wind, by Dr. Lyall Watson. It’s not about migration by water but by wind.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80654.Heaven_s_Breath

The author of 20 books, Lyall Watson (1939-2008) had doctorates in anthropology and ethology (animal behavior) and additional degrees in botany, chemistry, geology, geography, marine biology, and ecology. He spoke nine languages and worked as the Seychelles commissioner for the International Whaling Commission and as assistant to Raymond Dart, the distinguished South African paleontologist.

[IDemo]

11. Just ordered it, thanks

It looks like a fascinating read!

[Kablooie]

8. I'm sure it didn't come from Fukashima.

The main tsunami damage was hundreds of miles north of the reactor.
Most of the debris will come from there.

Even if it did come from Fukashima, the radiation didn't escape from the plant until long after the tsunami occurred so all the debris would have been long gone and wouldn't be contaminated.

[AsahinaKimi]

13. STORY FROM JAPAN...

[font color="red" size="8" face="face"]Massive Tsunami-hit dock from Aomori Port washes up on Oregon Beach[/font]

Coast to coast: Scientists inspect a dock that washed ashore Wednesday on Agate Beach, about 1.5 km north of Newport, Oregon. The 20-meter-long floating dock was carried out to sea by the tsunami in the Tohoku region last year. KYODO

PORTLAND, Oregon — A huge floating dock cast adrift by last year's killer tsunami has washed up on an Oregon beach, the biggest pieces of flotsam to make landfall on the U.S. West Coast so far.

The 20-meter-long rectangular structure, made of concrete and metal, was spotted floating off the coast Monday and then washed in with the high tide on Agate Beach, about 150 km southwest of Portland.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department contacted Japanese diplomats, who confirmed it had been set loose by the March 11, 2011, tsunami, and had drifted nearly 9,000 km across the Pacific over the last 15 months.

more...http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120608a2.html