Great Basin paleoenvironmental studies project; Technical progress report: Fourth quarter, March--May, 1994
Examination of the paleoenvironmental and geomorphic records to determine the local and regional impact of past climates will advance the assessment of Yucca Mountain`s suitability as a high-level nuclear waste repository. Paleobotanical studies will reconstruct the response of vegetation to climate change at the community and the organismal levels in order to identify periods of mesic climate at Yucca Mountain and the adjacent region during the last 20,000 to 50,000 years. Constructing a history of Great Basin vertebrates, particularly mammals, will provide empirical evidence of past environmental and climatic conditions within the Great Basin. The objective of the geomorphology component of the program is to document the responses of surficial processes and landforms to the climatic changes documented by studies of packrat middens, pollens, and faunal distributions. The goal of the transportation component is to compare the results from three models (FESWMS-2DH, DAMBRK, and FLO-2D) that have been suggested as appropriate for evaluating flood flows on alluvial fans with the results obtained from the traditional one-dimensional, stochastic model used in previous research for the Yucca Mountain Project. Progress on all these tasks is described.
- Research Organization:
- Nevada Univ., Reno, NV (United States). Desert Research Inst.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC08-93NV11417
- OSTI ID:
- 145237
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/NV/11417--4; ON: DE94014166
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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