High-level radioactive waste managementHigh-level radioactive waste management concerns how radioactive materials created during production of nuclear power and nuclear weapons are dealt with. Radioactive waste contains a mixture of short-lived and long-lived nuclides, as well as non-radioactive nuclides. There was reportedly some of high-level nuclear waste stored in the United States in 2002. The most troublesome transuranic elements in spent fuel are neptunium-237 (half-life two million years) and plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years).
Fault (geology)In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of subduction zones or transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. Faults may also displace slowly, by aseismic creep.
Geological formationA geological formation, or simply formation, is a body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics (lithology) that distinguishes it from adjacent bodies of rock, and which occupies a particular position in the layers of rock exposed in a geographical region (the stratigraphic column). It is the fundamental unit of lithostratigraphy, the study of strata or rock layers. A formation must be large enough that it can be mapped at the surface or traced in the subsurface.
Radioactive wasteRadioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons reprocessing. The storage and disposal of radioactive waste is regulated by government agencies in order to protect human health and the environment.
GeologyGeology () is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth sciences, including hydrology. It is integrated with Earth system science and planetary science. Geology describes the structure of the Earth on and beneath its surface and the processes that have shaped that structure.
High-level wasteHigh-level waste (HLW) is a type of nuclear waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It exists in two main forms: First and second cycle raffinate and other waste streams created by nuclear reprocessing. Waste formed by vitrification of liquid high-level waste. Liquid high-level waste is typically held temporarily in underground tanks pending vitrification. Most of the high-level waste created by the Manhattan Project and the weapons programs of the cold war exists in this form because funding for further processing was typically not part of the original weapons programs.
San Andreas FaultThe San Andreas Fault is a continental right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly through the Californias. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. Traditionally, for scientific purposes, the fault has been classified into three main segments (northern, central, and southern), each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk. The average slip rate along the entire fault ranges from per year.
Formation evaluationIn petroleum exploration and development, formation evaluation is used to determine the ability of a borehole to produce petroleum. Essentially, it is the process of "recognizing a commercial well when you drill one". Modern rotary drilling usually uses a heavy mud as a lubricant and as a means of producing a confining pressure against the formation face in the borehole, preventing blowouts. Only in rare and catastrophic cases, do oil and gas wells come in with a fountain of gushing oil.
Fluid dynamicsIn physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of liquids in motion). Fluid dynamics has a wide range of applications, including calculating forces and moments on aircraft, determining the mass flow rate of petroleum through pipelines, predicting weather patterns, understanding nebulae in interstellar space and modelling fission weapon detonation.
Incompressible flowIn fluid mechanics or more generally continuum mechanics, incompressible flow (isochoric flow) refers to a flow in which the material density is constant within a fluid parcel—an infinitesimal volume that moves with the flow velocity. An equivalent statement that implies incompressibility is that the divergence of the flow velocity is zero (see the derivation below, which illustrates why these conditions are equivalent). Incompressible flow does not imply that the fluid itself is incompressible.
Well loggingWell logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record (a well log) of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual inspection of samples brought to the surface (geological logs) or on physical measurements made by instruments lowered into the hole (geophysical logs). Some types of geophysical well logs can be done during any phase of a well's history: drilling, completing, producing, or abandoning.
Chinle FormationThe Chinle Formation is an Upper Triassic continental geological formation of fluvial, lacustrine, and palustrine to eolian deposits spread across the U.S. states of Nevada, Utah, northern Arizona, western New Mexico, and western Colorado. In New Mexico, it is often raised to the status of a geological group, the Chinle Group. Some authors have controversially considered the Chinle to be synonymous to the Dockum Group of eastern Colorado and New Mexico, western Texas, the Oklahoma panhandle, and southwestern Kansas.
Fracture (geology)A fracture is any separation in a geologic formation, such as a joint or a fault that divides the rock into two or more pieces. A fracture will sometimes form a deep fissure or crevice in the rock. Fractures are commonly caused by stress exceeding the rock strength, causing the rock to lose cohesion along its weakest plane. Fractures can provide permeability for fluid movement, such as water or hydrocarbons. Highly fractured rocks can make good aquifers or hydrocarbon reservoirs, since they may possess both significant permeability and fracture porosity.
Fluid mechanicsFluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasmas) and the forces on them. It has applications in a wide range of disciplines, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical, and biomedical engineering, as well as geophysics, oceanography, meteorology, astrophysics, and biology. It can be divided into fluid statics, the study of fluids at rest; and fluid dynamics, the study of the effect of forces on fluid motion.
Titania (moon)Titania (təˈtɑːniə,_təˈteɪniə), also designated Uranus III, is the largest of the moons of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System at a diameter of , with a surface area comparable to that of Australia. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, it is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies inside Uranus's magnetosphere. Titania consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock, and is probably differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle.
Cascadia subduction zoneThe Cascadia subduction zone is a 960 km (600 mi) fault at a convergent plate boundary, about 112-160 km (70-100 mi) off the Pacific Shore, that stretches from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California in the United States. It is capable of producing 9.0+ magnitude earthquakes and tsunamis that could reach 30m (100 ft). The Oregon Department of Emergency Management estimates shaking would last 5-7 minutes along the coast, with strength and intensity decreasing further from the epicenter.
Deep geological repositoryA deep geological repository is a way of storing hazardous or radioactive waste within a stable geologic environment (typically 200–1000 m deep). It entails a combination of waste form, waste package, engineered seals and geology that is suited to provide a high level of long-term isolation and containment without future maintenance. This will prevent any radioactive dangers.
PorosityPorosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure the "accessible void", the total amount of void space accessible from the surface (cf. closed-cell foam). There are many ways to test porosity in a substance or part, such as industrial CT scanning.
Oberon (moon)Oberon ˈoʊbərɒn, also designated Uranus IV, is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second-largest, with a surface area that is compareable to the area of Australia, and second most massive of the Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Oberon is named after the mythical king of the fairies who appears as a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies partially outside Uranus's magnetosphere.
Ariel (moon)Ariel is the fourth-largest of the 27 known moons of Uranus. Ariel orbits and rotates in the equatorial plane of Uranus, which is almost perpendicular to the orbit of Uranus and so has an extreme seasonal cycle. It was discovered in October 1851 by William Lassell and named for a character in two different pieces of literature. As of 2019, much of the detailed knowledge of Ariel derives from a single flyby of Uranus performed by the space probe Voyager 2 in 1986, which managed to image around 35% of the moon's surface.
