Re: GEOLOGISTS LEARNING URANIUM CONTAINMENT FROM NATURE

["Joan Stovall" <joans@PCEZ.COM>]

Another location, similar to the site in Virginia, is the Oklo reactor zone

in Africa.  This was a body of ore that became flooded and as a consequence

went critical, running as a 'natural reactor for something like 200,000

years.  Yet, no fission products moved more than a few centimeters from the

ore body.  The plutonium by-products did not move more than a few

millimeters.



- ----- Original Message -----

From: "Susan Gawarecki" <loc@ICX.NET>

To: "RADSAFE" <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 9:59 AM

Subject: GEOLOGISTS LEARNING URANIUM CONTAINMENT FROM NATURE





> GEOLOGISTS LEARNING URANIUM CONTAINMENT FROM NATURE

>

> BLACKSBURG, Virginia, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - One of the richest

> uranium deposits in the U.S. lies beneath Coles Hill in rural Virginia -

> forming a perfect natural laboratory for studying radioactive waste

> containment.

>

> "You would expect ground water in this type of natural system to

> have carried the uranium away from the site into the surrounding

> environment, but we don't see that," said Virginia Tech Ph.D. student

> Jim Jerden. "We think we can learn something from this site that can

> be applied to existing contaminated sites and nuclear waste

> repositories."

>

> As geologists, Jerden and his advisor, A. K. Sinha, professor of

> geological sciences, are looking at the natural system that contains

> the Coles Hill uranium deposit as a unique geologic analog for uranium

> contaminated sites and nuclear waste repositories.

>

> "Nature may present a model for the scientifically sound management

> of nuclear wastes and contaminated sites," said Jerden. "We have

> discovered that the abundance of phosphorous and its interaction

> with uranium is likely the cause for the lack of migration."

>

> Jerden presented some of his research from Coles Hill this morning at

> the 36th annual meeting of the Northeastern Section of the

> Geological Society of America (GSA) in Burlington, Vermont.

>

> Scientists from the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology

> Laboratory have already been experimenting with phosphorous and

> uranium in the laboratory.

>

> "The goal of these experiments was to develop new cost effective

> technologies that can be applied for remediation of uranium

> contaminated sites," explained Jerden. "So they were very interested

> when we told them we were researching a natural system in which

> uranium and phosphorus are combining to naturally limit uranium

> transport."

> --

> .....................................................

> Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

> Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

>                        -----

> A schedule of meetings on DOE issues is posted on our Web site

> http://www.local-oversight.org/meetings.html - E-mail loc@icx.net

> .....................................................

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