The study of the subsurface flow and distribution of water is critical to the evaluation of the unsaturated zone for a potential geologic high-level radioactive waste repository. This site is located at Yucca Mountain, Nevada in the northern Mojave Desert. and was chosen on the basis of its low precipitation, deep unsaturated zone, and layered volcanic rocks providing the potential for natural hydraulic barriers to reduce the downward percolation of water through the waste storage area. The detailed characterization of hydrologic properties is necessary to evaluate the mechanisms responsible for the distribution and flow of water in the unsaturated zone. Analyses in this study have provided detailed hydrogeologic units with unique hydrologic properties and hydraulic parameters. Porosity was determined to be a useful physical property for predicting hydraulic parameters, as it relates to the largescale deterministic processes that created the volcanic rocks. The detailed property dataset, along with field measurements of moisture status, temperature, and chemistry, were used to evaluate the potential for lateral diversion in the rocks above the potential repository. It was determined that lateral diversion is a small-scale process in this natural system. On the basis of analyses performed in this study, it is suggested that large-scale diversion is not likely to occur at this site. This mechanism should not, therefore, be relied upon to perform as a natural hydraulic barrier to flow reducing percolation through the unsaturated zone. / Graduation date: 2002

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 24, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation supervisors: Dr. William H. Miller, Dr. Brady D. Hanson. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Yucca Mountain was designated as the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository by the U.S. Government in 1987. The proposed repository design requires high safety for a long maintenance period of 10,000 years. To satisfy this requirement, evaluation of the influence of earthquakes on the repository is necessary. Prediction of earthquake-induced ground motions around the repository requires knowledge of the dynamic properties of the geologic materials around the repository. The main geologic materials in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain are tuffs (ignimbrites) which are formed by the deposition of volcanic ash mixed with erupted volcanic gas, water vapor and pyroclastic material. Two types of dynamic tests, (1) the free-free, unconfined, resonant column and direct arrival test (freefree URC test) and (2) the fixed-free resonant column and torsional shear test (fixed-free RCTS test), were used to measure the dynamic properties of tuffs. The emphasis in this dynamic testing was evaluation of shear modulus (G) and material damping ratio (D) of the tuffs in the small-strain (linear) and mildly nonlinear (to strains of about 0.02 %) ranges. To evaluate the influence of various parameters on G and D of tuffs, correlations with other features such as total unit weight, porosity and stratigraphic unit were performed and general relationships between them are proposed. In addition, an unconfined, slow-cyclic torsional shear (CTS) device was developed and used to measure the cyclic shear properties of the tuffs from Yucca Mountain at larger strain amplitudes than possible in the fixed-free RCTS tests. Additionally, the CTS device was also used to determine the shear failure strength of the tuffs. By combining the cyclic shear properties of the tuffs from the CTS tests and the dynamic properties of the tuffs from the fixed-free RCTS tests, complete dynamic property curves from small-strain to failure strain were evaluated. / text

Yucca Mountain was designated as the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository by the U.S. Government in 1987. The proposed repository design requires high safety for a long maintenance period of 10,000 years. To satisfy this requirement, evaluation of the influence of earthquakes on the repository is necessary. Prediction of earthquake-induced ground motions around the repository requires knowledge of the dynamic properties of the geologic materials around the repository. The main geologic materials in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain are tuffs (ignimbrites) which are formed by the deposition of volcanic ash mixed with erupted volcanic gas, water vapor and pyroclastic material. Two types of dynamic tests, (1) the free-free, unconfined, resonant column and direct arrival test (freefree URC test) and (2) the fixed-free resonant column and torsional shear test (fixed-free RCTS test), were used to measure the dynamic properties of tuffs. The emphasis in this dynamic testing was evaluation of shear modulus (G) and material damping ratio (D) of the tuffs in the small-strain (linear) and mildly nonlinear (to strains of about 0.02 %) ranges. To evaluate the influence of various parameters on G and D of tuffs, correlations with other features such as total unit weight, porosity and stratigraphic unit were performed and general relationships between them are proposed. In addition, an unconfined, slow-cyclic torsional shear (CTS) device was developed and used to measure the cyclic shear properties of the tuffs from Yucca Mountain at larger strain amplitudes than possible in the fixed-free RCTS tests. Additionally, the CTS device was also used to determine the shear failure strength of the tuffs. By combining the cyclic shear properties of the tuffs from the CTS tests and the dynamic properties of the tuffs from the fixed-free RCTS tests, complete dynamic property curves from small-strain to failure strain were evaluated.

Studies are currently underway to determine the suitability of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. Values of net infiltration are required to determine pre-waste emplacement groundwater travel times and the performance of the repository as a waste containment system. The objective of this study was to develop a numerical model to perform water balance calculations and predict rates of net infiltration for the site. The model included processes of precipitation, runoff, evapotranspiration, infiltration, and redistribution of water within a soil profile. The watershed was divided into 477 grid cells 75.7 x 75.7 m. The elevation, slope, aspect, and hydrologic properties were assumed to be constant within a grid cell but varied from one cell to the next Water balance calculations were performed for each cell using a one-dimensional form of Richards equation. The solution was obtained using the finite difference method with Newton-Raphson iteration. The model was calibrated using water content data obtained from neutron-moisture meter measurements in boreholes located in Pagany Wash Watershed Measurements were made in channel and terrace alluvium and in tuffs. Computer simulations reproduced water content data for a major precipitation event that occurred in 1984. Simulations verified the importance of antecedent soil water content in controlling the occurrence of runoff. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the soil and alluvium grain-size distributions, which are used to calculate unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, can greatly affect predicted rates of water movement / Graduation date: 1991

The United States plans to bury high level radioactive waste from commercial power reactors and from nuclear weapons manufacturing in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Yucca Mountain, located about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, consists of horizontally bedded tuff deposits. Although the region is very arid, enough water exists in the tuffs to create a vapor dominated geothermal system as the pore water evaporates, circulates and recondenses. This study examines how silica leaching might occur as a result of water-tuff interactions in Yucca Mountain after the emplacement of heat-producing nuclear waste canisters. A vertical thermal gradient experiment (VTGE) was designed and built in order to simulate the water cycling scenario where water in the tuff is vaporized by the heat from the canisters, moves to cooler regions along fractures and condenses as a liquid which flows downward toward the hot canisters. This experiment was used to measure the rate of silica leaching from Yucca Mountain tuff at various heat fluxes. The results show that under the experimental conditions silica is leached from the tuff sample very effectively (about 1.85 x 10 -8 g per Joule of heat transferred). With such a rate, significant amount of amorphous silica (135 kg per canister for the first 1,000 years after emplacement) could be leached, transported and deposited above the repository horizon; the resulting low permeability zone might change the geological and hydrological properties of the host rock. A significant amount of colloidal silica was formed in the solution soon after the water recycling began. Such colloidal silica could adsorb and transport radionuclides released from breached waste canisters more efficiently than that when radionuclides act alone. The results indicate that silica leaching is a potential problem for the current designs of the Yucca Mountain repository. / Master of Science

Perched water zones have been identified in the fractured, welded tuff in the semiarid to arid environments of Yucca Mountain, Nevada and near Superior, Arizona. An understanding of the formation of such zones is necessary in order to predict where future perched water might form at Yucca Mountain, the proposed site of a high-level nuclear waste repository. The formation or growth of a perched zone above a repository is one factor of the factors to be considered in the risk assessment of the Yucca Mountain site. The Apache Leap Research Site (ALRS) near Superior, Arizona is a natural analog to the Yucca Mountain site in terms of geology, hydrology, and climate. Perched water has been identified over an area of at least 16 km² in the Apache Leap Tuff, a mid- Miocene fractured, welded ash-flow tuff. A primary goal of this investigation was to characterize the physical and hydrologic properties of the tuff in the region above and including the perched zone, and to evaluate those characteristics to develop a model for a perching mechanism in the tuff. A second goal was to determine what fraction of water entering a watershed reaches the subsurface, to potentially recharge the perched zone. The Apache Leap Tuff has been subject to considerable devitrification and vapor phase crystallization, which dominate the character of the rock. With depth to the perched zone, pumice fragments become increasingly flattened and segregated; the pumice fragments are the primary locations of porosity in the rock, therefore porosity also becomes greatly reduced with depth, to the extent that the rock matrix is virtually impermeable at the perched water zone. Fractures are the primary pathways by which water moves through the rock; fracture hydraulic conductivity values were determined to be nine orders of magnitude greater than measured matrix hydraulic conductivity at the perched zone. An increase in fracture filling by silica mineralization beneath the perched zone reduces the secondary permeability, enhancing the formation of perched water. Thus, the primary mechanisms for the formation of the perched zone include fracture flow bringing water into the subsurface, combined with extremely low matrix hydraulic conductivity at depth, and reduced secondary permeability by filled fractures and lower fracture density. Water budgets were calculated for two years in a 51.4-ha watershed. Direct measurements were made of precipitation and runoff', evapotranspiration was both directly measured, and modeled based on measurement of a number of weather parameters. Infiltration was calculated as the residual of precipitation after runoff and evapotranspiration were removed. Infiltration was determined to be less than 10% of the annual water budget; evapotranspiration removes on the order of 90% of precipitation on an annual basis.

Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the proposed site for the underground storage of high-level civilian nuclear waste in the United States. The repository must be isolated from the general environment for at least 10,000 years. Ground water and gases are potential carriers of radioactive materials. Fractures and connected pores in the host rock are the major pathways for ground water and gases. Therefore, the mechanical and flow properties of the host rock should be understood and utilized in the design of the underground repository. Samples of Topopah Spring tuff from Yucca Mountain were used in this study. Cylindrical specimens were prepared to perform uniaxial and triaxial "damage" tests where specimens are loaded to a particular stress level to induce damage and fracturing and then unloaded. Mechanisms of microcracking at different fracturing levels have been studied by using both an optical microscope and a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The original rock sample without loading was also observed under the microscopes. Many kinds of defects including pores, preexisting fractures, and soft inclusions were found in the undamaged Apache Leap tuff samples. Pores were determined to be the main microstructures in Topopah Spring tuff that could influence the mechanical and hydrologic properties. Under compressive stresses, microcracking initiates from some of the pores. These microcracks will interact and coalescence to form large microcracks or macroscopic cracks as the load is increased. Crack propagation phenomena, such as pore cracking, pore linking, pore collapse and the formation of en echelon arrays were all found in specimens unloaded prior to complete failure. The failure of tuff specimens is often through a process of shear localization. In summary, the deformation and failure of both tuffs occurred by progressive fracturing, starting from microcracking on the small scale, and ending as fractures coalesced to form macroscopic fractures and shear localization. On the basis of the experimental studies, micromechanical models such as the pore collapse model and the pore linking model have been developed based on fracture mechanics theory. These models are used to predict the constitutive behavior for tuff and the predicted stress-strain curves match well with the experimental curves.

This report integrates and summarizes findings from the 1987 and 1988 Native American cultural resource studies related to the Yucca Mountain high level radioactive waste isolation facility. The purposes of the report are to describe the traditional cultural values associated with the Cultural Studies Area, describe the methods used in the research, and provide a theoretical discussion of the role of cultural resources in American Indian groups' past and contemporary society (DOE 1988:3 -9). Findings from these Native American cultural resource studies are presented in what are termed "interim reports." Each of these were submitted for concurrent review by the sixteen involved American Indian tribes, Science Applications International Corporation, and the Department of Energy. This report is based on five reports, including three interim reports.

This report presents Native American interpretations of and concerns for plant resources on or near Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This is one of three research reports regarding Native American cultural resources that may be affected by site characterization activities related to the Yucca Mountain high -level radioactive waste disposal facility. Representatives of the sixteen involved American Indian tribes identified and interpreted plant resources as part of a consultation relationship between themselves and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This report integrates data from the ethnobotanical fieldwork and visits conducted over a three -week period. The bulk of this report divides plants into their logical components: plant parts used; places where used; purposes of uses; and persons who used, do use, and will use the plants. The remainder of this Introduction is devoted to conveying an American Indian holistic perspective on plants as a part of the world.