ARCHIVE - EES Division Highlights/Accomplishments 2003

Archive

June 30, 2004

Dr. Antonio Munjiza, University of London Visits LANL
Dr. Antonio Munjiza of Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, visited the laboratory during the week of June 7 to initiate a collaborative effort with the EES-11 Geodynamics team and personnel from D-3 and X-7. The objective is to implement robust contact and compliant joint mechanics models in CASH, a hydrocode being developed by X7. The goal is to have serial versions of the models implemented and tested in early 2005 with parallel versions following shortly thereafter. These new capabilities will be used in large-scale simulations of the response and failure of underground structures subject to groundshock.

Geodynamics team participants are Wendee Brunish, Ted Carney, David Coblentz, and Bob Swift. D-3 participants are Earl Knight and Dave Steedman. Doran Greening of X-7 is the CASH development team representative and is providing guidance on implementation and code architecture issues.

EES Participates in DNFSB Staff Review of CMRR
The LANL Seismic Hazards Geology Team (EES-9) lead staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on a day-long field trip to examine the issue of faulting near the CMR Replacement site. The EES-9 team then participated in the ensuing two-day review giving progress reports on petrographic and borehole studies underway in support of the CMR project. Additionally, the DNFSB staff requested and received an update on geologic studies in the Valles Caldera (currently on hold) as well as implications for volcanic hazards.

Geophysics Group Leader Named Fellow in Japan
Michael Fehler, Group Leader of the Geophysics group in Earth and Environmental Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory was recently named a fellow of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Tohoku University in Sendai Japan "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of education and research at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University". This graduate school specializes in environmental sciences and comprises a group of primary research divisions, as well as associated divisions from other departments within the university, and related specialist divisions from outside the university. Fehler has had a long collaboration with a number of the faculty and staff in the Division of Solar and Terrestrial Systems and Energy Sciences that is mostly focused on the areas of downhole seismic measurements and geothermal energy. In addition, he has collaborations with other departments at Tohoku University.

June 16, 2004

EarthScope Workshop a Success
A 1.5-day workshop was held recently at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe to promote LANL coordination with the NSF-funded EarthScope Program. The May 24-25 workshop was funded by IGPP with support from LANL's EES Division. Approximately 40 participants attended the meeting, from LANL, SNL, NASA, JPL, USGS, University of Texas, El Paso, New Mexico Tech, New Mexico State, University of New Mexico, and the University of Miami, Florida. Following welcoming remarks and a description of the challenges faced by national laboratory participation, invited speakers presented an overview of the EarthScope Program. Possible collaborative projects were identified in breakout sessions covering the four aspects of EarthScope. A workshop summary is in preparation and should be available in two weeks.

EES-11's Microhole Drilling System deployed to Rocky Mountain Oilfield Test Center
David Anderson and Jim Thomson of LANL's Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) Division, deployed the EES-11 microhole drilling system to the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Test Center at Teapot Dome, Wyoming last week. The purpose of the deployment was to drill and complete a seismic instrumentation well that would serve as a prototype for additional wells to be drilled late this summer. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will use these microholes for the first-ever deeplook vertical seismic profile to be obtained with microhole seismic instrumentation.

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission, as a requirement for permitting this microhole, directed that a shallow oil-producing zone be isolated behind steel casing. This required the design and completion of a microwell with a cemented intermediate steel casing and a final grouted PVC casing. The principal challenge in drilling this kind of microwell is the cementing of the narrow 1/8-inch annuli between the formation and the steel casing, between the formation and the PVC casing, and between the steel and the PVC casing. This well was successfully completed on Tuesday, June 10 with cementing equipment we had specially modified. The microhole terminates at 810 ft. in shale with a hole diameter of 1-7/8 inch and cased inside diameter of 1-1/4 inches.

During drilling of the microhole, performance was obtained on newly introduced system components and refined drilling processes that will be used in the final design of the instrumentation wells to be drilled late this summer.

Brunish Gives Talk on LANL's GAMUT at the National Reconnaissance Office
The Inter-Agency Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Technical Working Group hosted a special session on Underground Facilities Research and Development at the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, VA on June 2-4, 2004.

Wendee Brunish, EES-11, Rod Whitaker, EES-2, and Frank Pabian, N-3, attended from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Brunish gave a presentation, co-authored by Greg Cole of EES-6, on the LANL-developed Geologic Assessment Methodology for Underground Targets (GAMUT). Brunish showed results for an underground target of great interest in a foreign country. The tools that we have developed allow us to show the separate structural blocks, faults, stratigraphic layers, as well as the facility infrastructure.

June 9, 2004

LANL's Armando Experiment Underway
Tom Kunkle and Chris Bradley, both containment scientists for the LANL Sub-Critical Experiment (SCE) Program from Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, recently traveled to U1a, the underground facility at the Nevada Test Site, the week of May 24th to oversee the successful containment of Armando. The Armando SCE is the fourth experiment in the Stallion series (the eighth LANL SCE) and was designed to look at questions regarding the equation of the state of plutonium. Armando was a unique type of experiment for Los Alamos because it employed a confinement vessel. Much work was done to ensure none of the weapons grade plutonium would escape the vessel or the Armando 'zero-room' upon detonation of the high explosives used in the experiment. It is the job of the containment scientist to oversee/certify the construction of the underground containment barriers and model/predict the expected containment phenomenology.

The Armando SCE has received some recent press which can be referenced from the LANL home page or go directly to: http://int.lanl.gov/news/headlines/index.php/fuseaction/home.main#945

Nuclear Energy Institute Tours Yucca Mountain
Over 40 officials from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Southern Company and Congressional Staff toured the Yucca Mountain Repository Site on May 25th. Tours at Yucca Mountain consist of a general briefing of the tunnel/repository layout and experiments (both completed and ongoing). This occurs underground in an excavation off the main tunnel called an Alcove. This Alcove has been customized for tours, including maps/displays and is about 160 meters (200 yards) underground.

May 19, 2004

Ice Age Era Core Sample Will Tell The Story Of The Valles Caldera—When It Was Once A Lake
In mid-May and late November, scientists from the Valles Caldera National Preserve, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the United States Geological Survey and the University of New Mexico, with funding from the USGS, LANL, and the National Science Foundation will plumb the depths of the preserve to remove two core samples.

The first sample, hopefully to a depth of 100 meters (about 328 feet) or more, will be drilled beginning May 14 in the Valle Grande. A second project to extract a smaller core sample of about 30 meters (about 40 feet) is being planned for this fall in the Alamo Bog area on the west side of the preserve.

The Valle Grande core sample will trace back a history of perhaps 500,000 years, long before humans came to North America. It was an age when wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, early horses, camels and antelope roamed the area. Scientists say the core may provide a glimpse into history perhaps as long as two to three ice ages ago. www.vallescaldera.gov.

National Conference of State Legislatures Tour Yucca Mountain
Richard Kovach of Kovach of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Yucca Mountain Program hosted a tour of the underground facilities and gave a briefing to participants in the National Conference of State Legislatures, on May 11, 2004. Los Alamos' own state legislator, Jeannette Wallace, was included in the group of twenty-three Senators, Representatives, Delegates, and Assemblyman from Washington, New Mexico, Alabama, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Maryland, Oregon, Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, South Carolina, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Idaho. Tours at Yucca Mountain consist of a general briefing of the tunnel/repository layout and experiments (both completed and ongoing). This occurs underground in an excavation off the main tunnel called an Alcove. This Alcove has been customized for tours, including maps/displays and is about 160 meters (200 yards) underground.

Professor Arthur Weglein visited EES Division on May 12-14. He delivered a seminar titled "A Perspective on the Evolution of Processing Seismic Primaries and Multiples for a Complex Multidimensional Earth ". The seminar consisted of material that Professor Weglein presented as distinguished speaker at seminars worldwide last year for the Society of Exploration Geophysicists Distinguished Lecture series. While in Los Alamos, Professor Weglein had extensive discussions about possible collaborative projects with the EES-11 imaging team. Efforts in seismic modeling and imaging were explored. Professor Weglein holds the Hugh Roy & Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professorship in the Physics department at the University of Houston. He is also head of the Mission-Oriented Seismic Research Program (MOSRP) at the University that receives funding from approximately 30 petroleum companies. Professor Weglein recently testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about HR6, which would provide up to $150 million per year for several years to develop improved capabilities for identification and extraction of petroleum from deep water locations in the Gulf of Mexico.

LANL Participates in Writer's Workshop for Next Generations Systems
On May 11-13 CL Edwards, Char Rowe, and Steve Taylor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Geophysics group attended a writer's workshop for Next Generation Systems for Nuclear Explosion Monitoring. The meeting was held at SNL, Albuquerque and was also attended by researchers from LLNL, PNNL, and NA-22 (NNSA Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering).

In the year 2001, the Air Force Technical Application Center (AFTAC) asked the NNSA national laboratories to participate in planning for what AFTAC will need in the year 2015 to carry out its mission of global monitoring of nuclear testing.

Phase 1 of the Vision 2015 Nuclear Treaty Monitoring System Study assessed currently documented nuclear treaty monitoring mission requirements and the capability of the current US Atomic Energy Detection System (USAEDS) to meet those requirements. The capability of all monitoring techniques were analyzed, including seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound, radionuclide, and satellite systems, against requirements for each monitoring region; underground, underwater, atmosphere, near-space, and deep-space.

Phase 2 of the study has evolved into Next Generation Systems for Nuclear Explosion Monitoring envisioned for 2015. The planning is closely tied to newly released US Government monitoring requirements. A gap analysis of the current monitoring system was performed and a program having four main elements was proposed: 1) Development of the next generation nuclear explosion monitoring data analysis system, 2) Development of alternative monitoring technologies including those relevant to interpreting hydrodynamic data, 3) Lab to field scale experimental program in explosion source physics, and 4) Use of supercomputers for advanced model-based signal processing techniques.

Tour Yucca Mountain Tours Yankee Atomic, Vermont
On Tuesday, May 11th, Richard Kovach of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Yucca Mountain Program briefed new media and business representatives from Vermont, as well as representatives from Yankee Atomic, a nuclear power plant located in Vermont. The briefing included an overview of geology, results of testing activities and repository layout.

Nevada Business Leaders Tour Yucca Mountain
On Thursday, May 15th, Dick Kovach of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Yucca Mountain Program gave a briefing to several Nevada business leaders. The information presented included an overview of geology, results of testing activities and repository layout.

May 5, 2004

French Parliament and USAF Tour Yucca Mountain
On Tuesday, April 27th, Bruce Reinert of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory hosted four officials from the French National Assembly and the French Embassy in Washington, DC as well as six high-ranking officials from the United States Air Force on a tour of the Yucca Mountain repository facility. The Parliament has an extensive nuclear program and has interest in the U.S.'s progress in waste repository sites. The USAF participated in the tour because part of Yucca Mountain resides on Air Force land.

Tours of Yucca Mountain consist of a general briefing of the tunnel/repository layout and experiments. This occurs underground in an excavation off the main tunnel referred to as an Alcove. This alcove has been customized for tours, including maps/displays and is about 160 meters (200 yards) underground.

LANL Participates in 2004 Annual meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Geophysics group members in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory submitted a total of four extended abstracts for presentation at the 2004 Annual meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. The SEG meeting is the world's largest meeting of exploration geophysics researchers and technologists.

Extended abstracts for the SEG meeting are mini-papers, and are subjected to peer-review before they are accepted for presentation at the meeting.

The following extended abstracts were submitted and are in review (authors are EES-11 except as noted): "Stationary-phase wave-equation migration" by Lianjie Huang, Hongchuan Sun, and Michael Fehler

"Globally optimized Fourier finite-difference migration in the offset domain" by Hongchuan Sun, Lianjie Huang, and Michael C. Fehler

"Controlled-aperture wavepath-wave-equation migration" by Hongchuan Sun, Lianjie Huang, and Michael C. Fehler

"Next-Generation Seismic Modeling and Imaging Project: Summary of Elastic Modeling Results" by Leigh House, Shawn Larsen (LLNL), Cory Hoelting, Kurt Marfurt, and Robert Wiley (Hoelting, Marfurt, and Wiley are University of Houston).

Environmental Protection Agency at Yucca Mountain
Eight officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) attended a briefing given by Bruce Reinert of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday, April 29, 2004. The EPA will be participating in setting part of the radiation exposure standards for the surrounding area.

April 21, 2004

Test Exercise Alpha presented as part of NNSA's Test Readiness Program
On April 20, 2004, David Coblentz, EES-11, presented Test Exercise Alpha to the Nevada Site Office's Containment Evaluation Panel (CEP) for evaluation. The CEP is composed of 9 members with extensive experience and expertise in all issues relating to the containment of underground nuclear tests. Thomas Kunkle, EES-11, is the Los Alamos representative.

The CEP considers all aspects of the event, including all possible device yields, physics diagnostics design, stemming material properties, emplacements, and expected post-shot performance, geologic setting, relevant past experience, and expected phenomenology. The panel then evaluates any containment concerns and gives their best judgement of the containment prospects for the event. Although Test Exercise Alpha did not represent plans for an actual test, it did measure the capability of Los Alamos National Laboratory to prepare for a future test. The Panel judged the containment prospects for Alpha as excellent and issued a passing grade.

Clark County Leadership Forum tours Yucca Mountain
As an opportunity for local government officials to visit the site and receive a briefing on past, present, and planned activities at the Yucca Mountain repository, about 40 officials from the Clark County Leadership Forum attended a tour the facility on Wednesday, April 14th hosted by Bruce Reinert of EES-7 in Las Vegas. Tours at Yucca Mountain consist of a general briefing of the tunnel/repository layout and experiments (both completed and ongoing). This occurs underground in an excavation off the main tunnel called an Alcove. This Alcove has been customized for tours, including maps/displays and is about 160 meters (200 yards) underground.

Archive