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Migration of Solutes in Unsaturated, Fractured Rock at Yucca Mountain: Measurements, Mechanisms, and Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

A. V. Wolfsberg ,
B. A. Robinson  and
J. T. Fabryka-Martin
A. V. Wolfsberg
Affiliation:
Geoanalysis/ EES-5, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545
B. A. Robinson
Affiliation:
Geoanalysis/ EES-5, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545
J. T. Fabryka-Martin
Affiliation:
Environmental Science and Waste Technology/CST-7, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545
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Abstract

Characterization and performance assessment (PA) studies for the potential high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain require an understanding of migration mechanisms and pathways of radioactive solutes. Measurements of 36C1 in samples extracted from boreholes at the site are being used in conjunction with recent infiltration estimates to calibrate a site-scale flow and solute transport model. This exercise using the flow and solute transport model, FEHM, involves testing different model formulations and two different hypotheses to explain the occurrence of elevated 36Cl in the Calico Hills unit (CHn) which indicates younger water than in the overlying Topopah Spring unit (TSw). One hypothesis suggests fast vertical transport from the surface via fractures in the TSw to the CHn. An alternative hypothesis is that the elevated 36C1 concentrations reflect rapid horizontal flow in the CHn or at the interface between the CHn and the TSw with the source being vertical percolation under spatially isolated regions of high infiltration or at outcrops of those units. Arguments in favor of and against the hypotheses are described in conjunction with the site-scale transport studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 412: Symposium V – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XIX , 1995 , 707
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1996

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