Method development and strategy for the characterization of complexly faulted and fractured rhyolitic tuffs, Yucca Mountain, Nevada
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)
- Geological Survey, Sacramento, CA (United States)
The planned high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, would exist in unsaturated, fractured welded tuff. One possible contaminant pathway to the accessible environment is transport by groundwater infiltrating to the water table and flowing through the saturated zone. Therefore, an effort to characterize the hydrology of the saturated zone is being undertaken in parallel with that of the unsaturated zone. As a part of the saturated zone investigation, there wells-UE-25c{number_sign}1, UE-25c{number_sign}2, and UE-25c{number_sign}3 (hereafter called the c-holes)-were drilled to study hydraulic and transport properties of rock formations underlying the planned waste repository. The location of the c-holes is such that the formations penetrated in the unsaturated zone occur at similar depths and with similar thicknesses as at the planned repository site. In characterizing a highly heterogeneous flow system, several issues emerge. (1) The characterization strategy should allow for the virtual impossibility to enumerate and characterize all heterogeneities. (2) The methodology to characterize the heterogeneous flow system at the scale of the well tests needs to be established. (3) Tools need to be developed for scaling up the information obtained at the well-test scale to the larger scale of the site. In the present paper, the characterization strategy and the methods under development are discussed with the focus on the design and analysis of the field experiments at the c-holes.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 138332
- Report Number(s):
- LBL-29700; ON: DE92000647; TRN: JT9212%%555
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Jun 1991; Related Information: Is Part Of Earth Sciences Division annual report 1990; PB: 197 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
TUFF
HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
HYDROLOGY
BOREHOLES
DATA ANALYSIS
EXPERIMENT PLANNING
FIELD TESTS
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
MEASURING METHODS
PROGRESS REPORT
RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
WELLS
Yucca Mountain Project