Final report of the Peña Blanca natural analogue project

Technical Report · Tue Oct 04 00:00:00 EDT 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1329043· OSTI ID:1329043

Levy, Schön S. ^[1]; Goldstein, Steven Joel ^[1]; Abdel-Fattah, Amr I. ^[1]; Amato, Ronald S. ^[1]; Anthony, Elizabeth ^[2]; Cook, Paul ^[3]; Dobson, Patrick F. ^[3]; Fayek, Mostafa ^[4]; French, Diana ^[2]; Garza, Rodrigo de ^[5]; Ghezzehei, Teamrat ^[3]; Goodell, Philip C. ^[2]; Harder, Steven H. ^[2]; Ku, Teh-Lung ^[6]; Luo, Shangde ^[6]; Murrell, Michael Tildon ^[1]; Norman, Deborah E. ^[1]; Nunn, Andrew J. ^[1]; Oliver, Ronald ^[1]; Pekar-Carpenter, Katrina ^[2] ; Rearick, Michael Sean ^[1]; Ren, Minghua ^[2]; Reyes-Cortes, Ignacio ^[5]; Pineda, Jose Alfredo ^[7]; Saulnier, George ^[8]; Tarimala, Sowmitri ^[1]; Walton, John ^[2]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
2. Univ. of Texas, El Paso, TX (United States)
3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
4. Univ. of Manitoba, Winnipeg (Canada)
5. Univ. Autonoma de Chihuahua (Mexico)
6. Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
7. El Instituto de Ecologia (INECOL) (Mexico)
8. AREVA Federal Services LLC, Charlotte, NC (United States)

The Peña Blanca region, 50 km north of Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, México, was a target of uranium exploration and mining by the Mexican government. After mining ceased in 1981, researchers became interested in this region as a study area for subsurface uranium migration with relevance to geologic disposal of nuclear waste. Many studies related to this concept were conducted at the Nopal I mine site located on a cuesta (hill) of the Sierra Peña Blanca. This site has geologic, tectonic, hydrologic, and geochemical similarities to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a formerly proposed site for a high-level nuclear-waste repository in the unsaturated zone. The U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE), Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), sponsored studies at Nopal I in the 1990s and supported the drilling of three research wells – PB1, PB2, and PB3 – at the site in 2003. Beginning in 2004, the Peña Blanca Natural Analogue Project was undertaken by U.S. DOE, OCRWM to develop a three-dimensional conceptual model of the transport of uranium and its radiogenic daughter products at the Nopal I site.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (RW)
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1329043
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-16-27630
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Pena Blaca
Nopal I
natural analogue
Mexico