Volcanic hazard studies for the Yucca Mountain project

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:137918

Crowe, B; Harrington, C ^[1]; Turrin, B; Champion, D ^[2]; Wells, S; Perry, F; McFadden, L; Renault, C ^[3]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
2. US Geological Survey (US)
3. New Mexico Univ., Albuquerque, NM (USA)

Volcanic hazard studies are ongoing to evaluate the risk of future volcanism with respect to siting of a repository for disposal of high-level radioactive waste at the Yucca Mountain site. Seven Quaternary basaltic volcanic centers are located between 8 and 47 km from the outer boundary of the exploration block. The conditional probability of disruption of a repository by future basaltic volcanism is bounded by the range of 10-8 to 10-10 yr-1. These bounds are currently being reexamined based on new developments in the understanding of the evolution of small volume, basaltic volcanic centers including: Many of the volcanic centers exhibit brief periods of eruptive activity separated by longer periods of inactivity, The centers may be active for time spans exceeding 105 yrs, There is a decline in the volume of eruptions of the centers through time, and Small volume eruptions occurred at two of the Quaternary centers during latest Pleistocene or Holocene. The authors classify the basalt centers as polycyclic, and distinguish them from polygenetic volcanoes. Polycyclic volcanism is characterized by small volume, episodic eruptions of magma of uniform composition over time spans of 103 to 105 yrs. magma eruption rates are low and the time between eruptions exceeds the cooling time of the magma volumes.

• OSTI ID: 137918
• Report Number(s): CONF-890207--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
42 ENGINEERING
58 GEOSCIENCES
BASALT
COOLING
ENVIRONMENT
HAZARDS
MAGMA
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RISK ASSESSMENT
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
VOLCANISM
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Yucca Mountain Project