TY - RPRT TI - The Greenland Analogue Project. Yearly Report 2009 AB - A deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel needs to be designed to keep used nuclear fuel isolated from mankind and the environment for a million years. Within this time frame glacial conditions are expected in regions that have been glaciated in the past two to ten million years. Climate induced changes such as the growth of ice sheets and permafrost will influence and alter the ground surface and subsurface environment, including its hydrology, which may impact repository safety. Glaciation impact assessments have to-date used over-simplified models and conservative assumptions, for example in the representation of ice sheet hydrology, that do not reflect the complexity of natural systems and processes. This is largely due to lack of direct observations of such processes from existing ice sheets, which if more readily available could help reduce uncertainties and provide a strong scientific basis for the treatment of glacial impacts in safety assessments. Our current understanding of the hydrological, hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical processes associated with glacial cycles and their impact on the long-term performance of deep geological repositories for spent nuclear fuel will be significantly improved by studying a modern analogue. To advance the understanding of processes associated with glaciation and their impact on the long-term performance of a deep geological repository, the Greenland Analogue Project (GAP), a four-year field and modelling study of the Greenland ice sheet and sub-surface conditions, has been initiated collaboratively by SKB, Posiva and NWMO. The study site encompasses a land terminus portion of the Greenland ice sheet east of Kangerlussuaq and is in many ways considered to be an appropriate analogue of the conditions that are expected to prevail in much of Canada and Fennoscandia during future glacial cycles. The project is planned to run from 2009 until 2012. The GAP will conduct the first in situ investigations of some of the parameters and processes needed to achieve a realistic understanding of how an ice sheet may impact a deep repository, and will provide measurements, observations and data that may significantly improve our safety assessments and risk analyses of glaciation scenarios. The project includes three sub-projects (A.C) with specific individual objectives, which collectively aim at contributing knowledge and input to the overall project aim. Figure 1.1 gives an overview of the different aspects of the three GAP sub-projects. The purpose of subdividing the project is that insights and data obtained from the different sub-projects constitute self-consistent data sets, which will be tested and implemented within the individual sub-projects. The overall idea is that the results of all sub-projects used and analyzed together will result in large synergistic effects for the understanding of hydrological conditions during glacial periods. That is also the reason why all sub-projects are performed within the same geographical area (see Figure 1.2). Finally, the GAP project will contribute to a three dimensional process understanding of a glaciated environment by obtaining an integrated view of ice sheet hydrology and groundwater flow and chemistry (Figure 1.1). This report was produced by the GAP team members and presents the outcome of the activities within the GAP during 2009 AU - "Not Available" KW - "12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES" KW - "RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL" KW - "UNDERGROUND DISPOSAL" KW - "GLACIERS" KW - "ICE" KW - "GREENLAND" DO - https://doi.org/ UR - https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/1027612 PB - CY - Sweden PY - 2010 DA - 2010-12-15 LA - English J2 - [] VL - C1 - Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co., Stockholm (Sweden) C2 - C3 - SKB-R-10-59 C4 - C5 - Also available from: http://www.skb.se/upload/publications/pdf/R-10-59webb.pdf; OSTI as DE01027612 L3 - Other Information: 34 refs., figs., tabs. ER -