Chlorine-36 concentrations have been determined in 48 samples, including four samples of the Grant meteorite, from known shielding locations. The new results on the Grant meteorite correlate very well with 26 Al and 10 Be and will be useful in checking theoretical production rate calculations. These measurements show the importance of shielding on 36 Cl production in large meteorites. Bur Gheluai, Dalgety Downs, and Dhajala meteorites have a more complex irradiation history. We are studying uptake and localization of Al in plants.
Plants suffer nutrient deficiency and develop drought intolerance following acid rain.
It has been suggested that the drought intolerance could be related to toxicity from Al released in acidic conditions. There is a general lack of understanding about the movement of Al across plasma membranes. Aluminum-26 is being used as a tracer to measure the uptake of Al in cell walls, cytoplasm and vacuole in plants cells of Chara Corallina . These results are compared with 27 Al. In the future we plan to isolate the vacuolar fraction and measure the uptake by vacuoles.