Literature Research on Investigation Technique in Saline Water Environment

Chiba, Akihiko*; Baba, Hideto*; Uegomori, Hiroaki*

Investigation techniques to characterize geological disposal sites of radioactive wastes have been developed focusing mainly on disposal sites under fresh water environment. It will, however, be necessary to develop techniques applicable to characterization of disposal sites in saline water environment, where the sites have to be selected in a coastal region. This literature research has been carried out in order to collect and compile basic data relevant to the captioned subject. A number of cases that include investigations on drill holes filled or contaminated by sea water are collected from papers and articles in various scientific journals published in the period between 1977 and 1997. The collected data are so classified and arranged to extract the point of issue. Generally, the investigation under saline water environment should take account of higher concentration of ions, dissolved substances and, accordingly higher conductivity than under fresh water environment. The difference of the environment will influence investigation techniques such as drilling, geophysical logging in drill holes, on-site hydraulic and water quality testing and so forth. Corrosion of equipment should also be taken into condition. These point of issue, however, are not specifically discussed in most of literatures collected during this study and remain as subjects for further research.