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Dr Andreas Bollhöfer – BSc, PhD

Research interests

Radiation Protection; Radioecology; Isotope Science.

General research interests and background

Dr Andreas Bollhöfer leads the ERISS Environmental Radioactivity program. His background is in Environmental Physics and Isotope Science, and he has spent most of his research career investigating isotopes of the natural uranium and thorium decay series and anthropogenic radionuclides from weapons testing to study environmental transport processes. He has used radioactive and radiogenic isotopes to characterise sources of pollution worldwide, and more specifically to assess the potential impacts of mining in the Alligator Rivers Region upon humans and the environment. Remotely sensed data such as airborne gamma surveys play an important role in those assessments. Andreas has represented the department on a number of international scientific committees associated with environmental radioactivity and radioecology programs. A focus of his recent research is the determination of pre-mining radiological conditions at Ranger mine with the view of developing post remediation radiological closure criteria.

Current key projects

• Estimating the pre-mining radiological conditions at Ranger by ground-truthing historic airborne gamma survey data.
• Investigation of radionuclide uptake in plants and animals, both terrestrial and aquatic.
• Development of a database that can be utilised to determine concentration ratios in biota for the purpose of assessing radiation doses to the environment and humans (via ingestion).
• Long term study of radon exhalation from the trial rehabilitation landform at the Ranger mine to investigate the effects of different soils and vegetation treatments on radon exhalation.
• Monitoring of airborne radon and dust concentrations in the vicinity of the Ranger mine.
• Monitoring of radionuclides in surface water and groundwater, and in mussels from the Magela Creek catchment.
• Assessment of the success of remediation of the historic uranium mine sites in the South Alligator River valley.

Key publications

Bollhöfer A, Brazier J, Ryan B, Humphrey C, Esparon A (2010) A study of radium bioaccumulation in freshwater mussels, Velesunio angasi, in the Magela Creek catchment, Northern Territory, Australia. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, doi:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2010.04.001 (in press)

Lawrence CE, Akber RA, Bollhöfer A and Martin P (2009). Radon-222 exhalation from open ground on and around a uranium mine in the wet-dry tropics. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 100, 1–8

Bollhöfer A, Pfitzner K., Ryan B., Martin P., Fawcett M. and Jones D.R. (2008). Airborne gamma survey of the historic Sleisbeck mine area in the Northern Territory, Australia, and its use for site rehabilitation planning. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 99, 1770-1774

Bollhöfer A., Honeybun R., Rosman K.J.R. and Martin P. (2006) The lead isotopic composition of dust in the vicinity of a uranium mine in northern Australia and its use for radiation dose assessment. Science of the Total Environment 366, 579-589

Bollhöfer A, Storm J, Martin P and Tims S (2005). Geographic variability in radon exhalation at a rehabilitated uranium mine in the Northern Territory, Australia. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 114. 313-330

Bollhöfer A, Rosman KJR, Dick AL, Chisholm W, Burton GR, Loss RD, Zahorowski W (2005) The concentration, isotopic composition and sources of lead in Southern Ocean air during 1999/2000, measured at the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station, Tasmania. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 69, 20, 4747-4757

Bollhöfer A. and Rosman K.J.R. (2002) The temporal stability in lead isotopic signatures at selected sites in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 66, 1375–1386

Bollhöfer A., Frank N., Rohloff S. Scholten J.C. & Mangini A. (1999) A Record of changing redox conditions in the northern Peru Basin during the late quaternary deduced from Mn/Fe- and growth rate variations in two diagenetic manganese nodules. Earth Planet Sci Lett 170, 403-415.

SSD publications

More information about SSD publications is available online.

• SSD publications home page
• Supervising Scientist Reports
• Supervising Scientist Annual Report
• Consolidated list of publications by Supervising Scentist Division staff from 1978

More information

• Research at Supervising Scientist Division
• Environmental monitoring at Supervising Scientist Division
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