Evaluation of influence of splay fault growth on groundwater flow around geological disposal system

Takai, Shizuka ; Takeda, Seiji ; Sakai, Ryutaro*; Shimada, Taro ; Munakata, Masahiro ; Tanaka, Tadao 

In geological disposal, direct effect on geological repositories by active faults is avoided at a stage of site characterization; however, uncertainty remains for avoidance of faults derived from the active faults, which are concealed deep under the ground and difficult to detect in advance. In this research, the influence of growth of undetected splay faults on natural barrier in a geological disposal system, which will caused by attack of the faults in the future, was evaluated. We investigated examples of splay faults in Japan and set conditions for growth of splay faults. Furthermore, we assumed a disposal site composed of sedimentary rocks and made a hydrogeological model of growth of splay faults. We carried out groundwater flow analyses, changing parameters such as location and depth of repository and growth velocity of splay faults. The results indicate that main flow path from the repository is changed into upward flow along the splay fault due to its growth and the average velocity to the ground surface becomes one or two orders of magnitude higher than that before its growth. The results also suggest that the splay fault growth leads into the possibility of downward flow of oxidizing groundwater from ground surface area.