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Open-File Report 2013–1245
Extreme Ground Motions and Yucca Mountain
By Thomas C. Hanks (chair), Norman A. Abrahamson, Jack W. Baker, David M. Boore, Mark Board, James N. Brune, C. Allin Cornell, and John W. Whitney
 Abstract
Yucca Mountain is the designated site of the underground repository for the United States' high-level
radioactive waste (HLW), consisting of commercial and military spent nuclear fuel, HLW derived from
reprocessing of uranium and plutonium, surplus plutonium, and other nuclear-weapons materials. Yucca Mountain
straddles the western boundary of the Nevada Test Site, where the United States has tested nuclear devices since
the 1950s, and is situated in an arid, remote, and thinly populated region of Nevada, ~100 miles northwest of
Las Vegas.
Yucca Mountain was originally considered as a potential underground repository of HLW because
of its thick units of unsaturated rocks, with the repository horizon being not only ~300 m above
the water table but also ~300 m below the Yucca Mountain crest. The fundamental rationale for a
geologic (underground) repository for HLW is to securely isolate these materials from the environment
and its inhabitants to the greatest extent possible and for very long periods of time. Given the
present climate conditions and what is known about the current hydrologic system and conditions
around and in the mountain itself, one would anticipate that the rates of infiltration, corrosion,
and transport would be very low—except for the possibility that repository integrity might be
compromised by low-probability disruptive events, which include earthquakes, strong ground motion,
and (or) a repository-piercing volcanic intrusion/eruption.
Extreme ground motions (ExGM), as we use the phrase in this report, refer to the extremely
large amplitudes of earthquake ground motion that arise at extremely low probabilities of
exceedance (hazard). They first came to our attention when the 1998 probabilistic seismic
hazard analysis for Yucca Mountain was extended to a hazard level of 10-8/yr (a 10-4/yr
probability for a 104-year repository “lifetime”). The primary purpose of this report is to
summarize the principal results of the ExGM research program as they have developed over the
past 5 years; what follows will be focused on Yucca Mountain, but not restricted to it.
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First posted November 25, 2013
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Suggested citation:
Hanks, T.C., Abrahamson, N.A., Baker, J.W., Boore, D.M., Board, M., Brune, J.N., Cornell, C.A., and Whitney, J.W., 2013, Extreme ground motions and Yucca Mountain: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2013–1245, 105 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ofr20131245.
ISSN 2331-1258 (online)
Contents
Introduction
Extreme Ground Motions and PSHA
Geologic and Tectonic Setting of Yucca Mountain
The “Million-Year-Old Landscape”
The Many Dimensions of Extreme Ground Motions
Physical Limits to Earthquake Ground Motion
Unexceeded Ground Motion
Event Frequencies
Points in Hazard Space
Discussion and Implications
The End...of the Beginning
Acknowledgments
References
Appendix I. Data for Exposure-Age and Erosion-Rate Determinations
Appendix II. Erosion-Rate Estimates from Detritus Volumes on the West Face of Yucca Mountain
Appendix III. Fragility Data and Calculations for the Lithophysal Units
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey