Deep Geologic Repositories
Deep Geologic Repositories reviews the success stories of underground waste isolation. It focuses on repositories that did, do, and will permanently and safely isolate dangerous materials from the near-surface biosphere. Complementary topics address the isolation capability of average crustal rock, investigations at one representative underground research laboratory, and the geologic preservation of fission products from Precambrian nuclear reactors. An international cast of contributors presents proven practical solutions to a formerly confounding issue in environmental and engineering geology: What do we do with wastes that retain their dangerous characteristics in human terms forever? The principal answer: Recycling into the lithosphere by “reverse” mining.
Geological characterization of the Asse salt mine for mining, disposal of radioactive waste, and proof of long-term safety
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Published:January 01, 2008
Abstract
In the Asse salt mine, a system with relatively small pillars and stopes was excavated between 1909 and 1964. From 1965 until 1978, low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes were disposed there permanently. Most of the chamber volume (∼3.5 million m3) was exposed to free convergence until 1995, when a backfilling campaign was started using pneumatic transportation of granular salt material. The barrier to the overburden rocks is formed by rock salt that has a minimal thickness of only 15 m in the upper part. The flank dips ∼70°SW. The Asse site has been monitored for decades by displacement observations, stress and strain measurements in the pillars, and recording of the backfill pressure built up in the chambers. Softening and damaging in the pillars and stopes of the mining horizon have led to stress redistributions into the overburden rocks, where rupture processes have occurred. Hence, because of the small dimension of the bearing elements on the southern flank and the close distance to the overburden, far-reaching geomechanical interactions exist.
- Asse Mine
- backfill
- Central Europe
- depth
- engineering properties
- Europe
- Germany
- Harz Mountains
- Lower Saxony Germany
- mines
- monitoring
- overburden
- Paleozoic
- Permian
- radioactive waste
- safety
- seismicity
- site exploration
- stress
- tectonics
- underground installations
- underground storage
- Upper Permian
- waste disposal
- waste disposal sites
- Zechstein