Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4527079 | Advances in Water Resources | 2006 | 12 Pages |
Abstract
Atomic weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site has introduced many tracers for quantifying subsurface hydrologic transport processes in arid climates. In 1975, groundwater adjacent to the Cambric test, conducted beneath Frenchman Flat 10Â years earlier, was pumped steadily for 16Â years to elicit information on the migration of residual radioactivity through the saturated zone. Radionuclides in the pumping well effluent, including tritium, 14C, 36Cl, and 85Kr, were extensively monitored prior to its discharge in an unlined ditch, where approximately a third of the flow infiltrated over a distance of 1Â km. Radionuclide infiltration through a 220-m thick vadose zone created a second, and rather unique long-term field experiment. Effluent data have been utilized in conjunction with geologic data, new radionuclide measurements, isotopic age-dating estimates, and vadose zone flow and transport models to better understand the movement of radionuclides between the ditch, the water table and a nearby groundwater monitoring well. Detection of tritium in the monitoring well occurred approximately 16Â years after its initial discharge into the ditch. Modeling and tritium age dating have suggested 3-5Â years of this 16-year transit time occurred solely in the vadose zone. They also suggest considerable recirculation of the pumping well discharge back into the original pumping well. Notably, there have been no observations of 14C or 85Kr in the monitoring well, suggesting their preferential retention or volatilization during transit to the water table.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Earth-Surface Processes
Authors
Andrew F.B. Tompson, G. Bryant Hudson, David K. Smith, James R. Hunt,