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Insights to Repository Performance through Study of a Nuclear Test Site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2011

D.K. Smith ,
A.B. Kersting ,
J.L. Thompson  and
D.L. Finnegan
D.K. Smith
Affiliation:
Analytical and Nuclear Chemistry Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA
A.B. Kersting
Affiliation:
Analytical and Nuclear Chemistry Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA
J.L. Thompson
Affiliation:
Chemical Sciences and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
D.L. Finnegan
Affiliation:
Chemical Sciences and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
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Abstract

Underground nuclear test sites offer an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate processes relevant to high-level waste repository performance in the absence of engineered barriers. Radionuclide migration programs at the Nevada Test Site represent a twenty-five year systematic investigation of the diverse radiologic source terms residual from weapons testing and the evolution of the hydrologic source term which comprises those radionuclides dissolved in or otherwise available for transport by groundwater. The Nevada Test Site shares actinide source terms, correlative geology, an identical tectonic setting, similar climate, and a thick unsaturated zone with the adjacent potential Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository and provides a natural laboratory to assess long-term radionuclide transport in the near field. Analog studies may ultimately help validate predictions of radionuclide transport from the potential Yucca Mountain repository.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 663: Symposium – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste management XXIV , 2000 , 1023
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2001

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