Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network at a central computer based in a DEFRA building in central London. For security reasons, a backup computer is also in operation at a secret location in the UK. The network was set up in 1988 as a response to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. As well as being of use in an emergency, the stations also serve to record historical data on radiation levels. Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network The Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network (RIMNET) is a network of 91 monitoring stations, used by the Government of the United Kingdom, which records and analyses the level of radioactivity across the
Caesium-137 assessing the age of sedimentation occurring after 1954. Caesium-137 is also used as a radioactive tracer in geologic research to measure soil erosion and deposition. Caesium-137 reacts with water, producing a water-soluble compound (caesium hydroxide). The biological behavior of caesium is similar to that of potassium and rubidium. After entering the body, caesium gets more or less uniformly distributed throughout the body, with the highest concentrations in soft tissue. The biological half-life of caesium is rather short, at about 70 days. A 1972 experiment showed that when dogs are subjected to a whole body burden of 3800 μCi/kg (140 MBq/kg,