Use of natural analogues to develop and test models of radionuclide release and transport in uplift / erosion scenarios

Klein, L.*; Hardie, S.*; McKinley, I.*; Tachi, Yukio; Shibata, Masahiro; Amano, Yuki; Takase, Hiroyasu*

no journal, , 

The uplift / erosion is treated as a special perturbation scenario for the safety assessment of the geological disposal, due to the Japanese tectonic setting, the impact of uplift must be considered as part of "likely" repository evolution. In an initial study, a simple uplift and erosion scenario was assessed with resultant changes in solubility and sorption of key radionuclides. A special challenge here is development of models and associated databases to quantify the impact of rock mechanical, hydrogeological and bio-geochemical changes on radionuclide migration both in the EBS and in the geosphere. There are great uncertainties with any laboratory studies to investigate the processes involved and therefore natural analogues have great potential here. The paper will list and discuss the key safety-relevant processes and potential analogue studies by considering both data mining of existing knowledge bases and also new projects that are specifically focused on this application.