2-Alkylcyclobutanones are routinely used as chemical markers for irradiated foods containing lipids. However, current extraction procedures (soxhlet-Florisil chromatography) for the isolation of these markers involve a long and tedious clean-up regime prior to GC-MS identification. A simple and rapid method for the isolation of these markers using carbon dioxide as a super critical fluid is described for low lipid content fish samples (fresh and sea water) irradiated up to 8kGy. The presence of 2-dodecylcyclobutanone (2-DCB), a radiolytic marker, was confirmed in all irradiated fish samples at all doses. This was a clear indication that the fish samples had been irradiated and that both methods of isolation (florisil and supercritical fluid extraction) were capable of qualitatively extracting this marker. Supercritical fluid extraction is proposed as an alternative extraction procedure to the florisil chromatography method currently in use and has the added advantage of a considerably shorter extraction time.