Thanks folks - some excellent info there. I will take time to read it. Like I said earlier, I am not worried about Japan. However, we have 2 reactors in CA and they are both designed to withstand earthquakes up to the 7-7.5 scale (but no more). Not totally reassuring. I am hoping that this Japanese crisis might prompt a review of the emergency shutdown procedures for all reactors in the USA. That is something that we should be able to improve.

One other thing about radioactive iodine ... seems like if you had contamination sources in your environment (or food) that were radioactive, you should be able to detect this with some sort of radiation meter. Assuming that you had a personal meter available (with enough sensitivity), maybe you could just do spot checks on your food and drinking water before consuming it? I don't know if this is really practical, but it might be one approach.

Someone asked (on another thread at the site) how exactly does the radiation in Japan break down? How much is due to alpha, beta, and gamma radiation? Good question. I have never seen that data disseminated, but I bet they've got it. We could ask the same thing about future radiation contamination in the USA. Suppose that we had a real problem with a radioactive plume in the atmosphere. We've got scientsts who should be able to tell us exactly which isotopes are causing the problem - again, this stuff is not rocket science. We've got good people who should be able to give answers.

other Pete