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Chlorine-36 Investigations of Groundwater Infiltration in the Exploratory Studies Facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2012

Schön S. Levy ,
June T. Fabryka-Martin ,
Paul R. Dixon ,
Beiling Liu ,
H. J. Turin  and
Andrew V. Wolfsberg
Schön S. Levy
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
June T. Fabryka-Martin
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
Paul R. Dixon
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
Beiling Liu
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
H. J. Turin
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
Andrew V. Wolfsberg
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
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Abstract

Chlorine-36, including the natural cosmogenic component and the component produced during atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950's and 1960's (bomb pulse), is being used as an isotopie tracer for groundwater infiltration studies at Yucca Mountain, a potential nuclear waste repository. Rock samples have been collected systematically in the Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF), and samples were also collected from fractures, faults, and breccia zones. Isotopie ratios indicative of bomb-pulse components in the water (36Cl/Cl values > 1250 × 10-15), signifying less than 40-yr travel times from the surface, have been detected at a few locations within the Topopah Spring Tuff, the candidate host rock for the repository. The specific features associated with the high 36Cl/Cl values are predominantly cooling joints and syngenetic breccias, but most of the sites are in the general vicinity of faults. The non-bomb pulse samples have 36Cl/Cl values interpreted to indicate groundwater travel times of at least a few thousand to possibly several hundred thousand years. Preliminary numerical solute-travel experiments using the FEHM (Finite Element Heat and Mass transfer) code demonstrate consistency between these interpreted ages and the observed 36Cl/Cl values but do not validate the interpretations.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 465: Symposium II – Scienfific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XX , 1996 , 901
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

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References

REFERENCES

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