EAST TENNESSEE GEOLOGICAL
SOCIETY
and
TENNESSEE SECTION of the
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGISTS
In this issue...
ETGS/AIPG April Meeting
April
Presentation
March Meeting Summary
Environmental Listserve
Information
Live Internet Seminars
Where's Rightmire
ETGS
Spring Field Trip
Contact Information
EAST TENNESSEE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
and
TENNESSEE SECTION of the
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGISTS
ETGS/AIPG MEETING
Monday, April 2, 2001
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Ryan's Family
Steakhouse
9645 Kingston Pike
Knoxville, Tennessee
Hydrogeology
and Modeling in Support of the High Level Waste
Tank Closures at the Savannah River Site
Allan
T. Jenkins
Tetra Tech NUS
Oak Ridge, TN
JenkinsA@ttnus.com
Abstract
The Savannah Rive Site (SRS) began storing liquid high-level radioactive waste in the early 1950s, which currently amounts to 34 million gallons, in underground storage tanks in the F- and H-Areas at the site. DOE has begun the process of removing the wastes from the tanks that do not meet current standards. An integral part of this process involves predicting future impacts from leaving a small quantity of residual wastes in the tanks that can not be technically or economically removed using currently available technology.
The SRS lies within the Aiken Plateau that is bounded by the Savannah and Congaree Rivers. The highly dissected surface of the plateau is characterized by broad interfluvial areas with narrow, steep-sided valleys. Local relief is as much as 300 feet. The tank farms lie along the top of an interfluvial area bounded by Upper Three Runs Creek and Fourmile Branch. The shallow aquifer beneath the tank farms (first impacted aquifer zone) consists of a stacked system of aquifer and aquitard layers know as the Upper Three Runs Aquifer; however, some local contaminant releases have also impacted the underlying Congaree Aquifer.
This discussion will present the local geology and hydrogeology of the area known as the General Separations Area that includes the F- and H-Area tank farms; will briefly discuss the tank physical parameters; and will address how a simplistic fate and transport model was used to guide the closure plan and performance assessment for the ongoing closure process.
by Carla Sparks
The March meeting of the ETGS and the The East Tennessee Chapter of AIPG was held in Oak Ridge at Ryan's Family Steakhouse.
Discussion was held regarding personal development hours and continuing education units. President Tony Tingle pointed out that ETGS provides backup information only for these credits, and it is up to each individual to find out his or her state's requirements and regulations. Steve Selecman has recently persued re-certification in the state of Alabama and has agreed to provide ETGS information on his findings for a future News Klippe article. We will be anxiously waiting his findings . . .
Ideas for future field trips were also brought before the members. Dr. Don Byerly had several suggestion including possible trips to the Flynn Creek Impact structure and Burgess Falls. A proposed Spring field trip is described in below in the April News Klippe
Tony Tingle presented information on soil conductivity profiling. Tony presented data from two sites where soil conductivity profiling was used for site characterization. A soil conductivity tool pushed by a Geoprobe rig proved to be fast, effective, and generated no soil cuttings. Overall, the use of soil conductivity profiling was successful for providing data to aid in interpretation of the subsurface geology at the sites. For a complete abstract, please see the March News Klippe.
ENVIRONMENTAL LISTSERVE INFORMATION
by Susan Gawarecki
EnviroOne invites you to join for free the discussion in one or more of several discussion groups centered around a cleaner environment for each medium. The following summarizes these group. You can click on the group of interest to join.
EnviroWater - a listserv on water resources, groundwater, surface water, drinking water, marine pollution, MtBE additive, non-point sources, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroWater.asp
EnviroAir - a listserv on acid rain, air quality standards, emission testing, asbestos, global warming, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroAir.asp
EnviroBrownfield - a listserv on tax incentive zones, new/emerging brownfield tools, brownfields funding, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroBrownfield.asp
EnviroEducation - a listserv on kids environmental activities, distance learning, financial assistance, sustainability, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroEducation.asp
EnviroList - a listserv on current postings of new jobs, grants, scholarships, fellowships, RFPs, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroList.asp
EnviroMNA - a listserv on natural attenuation including protocols, the latest on biotic/abiotic processes, innovative monitoring technologies, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroMNA.asp
EnviroSoftware - a listserv on every software with environmental implications including geotechnical, risk assessment, natural attenuation, groundwater, vadose zone, soil screening, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroSoftware.asp
EnviroSoils - a listserv on soil geochemistry, soil fertility, soil cleanup, soils from mine spoils, contaminated sediments, soil erosion, and more. http://www.enviroone.com/envsearch/EnviroSoils.asp
by Susan Gawarecki
Upcoming
Live Internet Seminars!! The EPA Technology Innovation Office,
ITRC and other partners are hosting a number of free two-hour
Live technical seminars over the Internet in March. Space is
still available, but you must register to participate.
Enhanced In Situ Bioremediation of Chlorinated Solvents: March 27
and 29
Permeable Reactive Barriers for Chlorinated Solvent, Inorganic,
and Radionuclide Contamination: April 11 and 12
For descriptions and registration information for these webcasts, see http://clu-in.org/studio . The slides and audio from past selected deliveries are accessible anytime night or day in the Studio archive.
by Tony Tingle
As many of you know, Craig Rightmire has begun the trek northward along the Appalachian Trail. He started on March 16th at Springer Mountain in Northern Georgia. From his starting location he is walking across metamorphic isograds toward rocks that enjoyed the peak of Paleozoic thermal metamorphism in the Blue Ridge Province (Absher and McSween, 1986). These rocks are exposed at Winding Stair Gap in Macon County, North Carolina. Maybe he will stop and check them out along the way.
Absher, B. Steven and Harry Y. McSween, Jr., 1986, Winding Stair Gap granulites: The thermal peak of Paleozoic metamorphism, in Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide - Volume 6, Southeastern Section, Thorton L. Neathery, editor.
FIELD TRIP FOR ETGS
Spring 2001by Betsy Gorisch
The proposed field trip of the East Tennessee Geological Society for Spring of 2001 covers a metamorphic traverse beginning with the chlorite grade rocks (lower greenschist facies) in Boyd Gap, at the head of the Ocoee Gorge, heading eastward and upgrade, generally following US Highway 64, and culminating with the granulite facies rocks cropping out at Winding Star Gap. The Winding Stair Gap rocks consist of a complicated assemblage of uniformly high-grade metapelites and meta-igneous rocks, including various schists, gneisses, an orthopyroxenite, and some migmatites. These rocks may be related to presumed Hayesville thrust sheet ophiolites (Absher and McSween, 1985). The area covered by the field trip comprises a portion of what has been termed the "Jefferson Terrane" (Horton et al., 1989), an allochthon lying between the Brevard fault zone (on the east) and the pre-metamorphic Hayesville fault (on the west), and extending further westward to the Boyd Gap location. It is composed of a highly complex collection of structures including folded thrust sheets, windows to underlying western Blue Ridge rocks, and occasional exposures of Grenville basement. The sedimentological and stratigraphic history of the area is extremely complex, and has proven difficult to interpret.
The stops on the proposed field trip represent locations of generally increasing metamorphic grade, from west to east. The traverse includes 9 stops, both east and west of the pre-metamorphic Hayesville fault, and on the Hayesville thrust sheet itself. One of the stops, at Ducktown, Tennessee, will include a visit to the Ducktown Basin Museum if time permits.
The objective of the thesis upon which this field trip is based was to determine a prograde metamorphic progression of mineral hosts for the Light Rare Earth Elements (LREEs), with specific emphasis on determining the paragenesis of monazite [(LREE, Th)PO4]. Monazite displays compositional zoning (and therefore may have the capacity for preserving inheritance). The incorporation of Th into its structure and a relatively high closure temperature (Tc)-perhaps as high as 750°C-make it potentially suitable as a prograde metamorphic geochronometer. Monazite commonly occurs in detrital materials. It appears to be unstable during diagenesis and low-grade (greenschist facies) metamorphism, and does not appear in such low-grade rocks, even where its presence can be demonstrated in their adjacent unmetamorphosed protoliths (Kingsbury et al, 1993). It reappears at higher grades, remaining stable and coarsening throughout the progression from lower amphibolite (staurolite grade) through lower granulite facies rocks, and persisting as an unstable phase during disequilibrium migmatization of these high-grade rocks. We attempted to isolate monazite grains from rocks representative of each metamorphic facies, and, employing IMP technology, obtain ages from selected zones of the individual crystals. This would enable us to assign an age to the culmination of prograde metamorphism in the southern Appalachian Blue Ridge. A raft trip down the Ocoee on Sunday of the trip weekend may also be worked out if there is enough interest.
EAST TENNESSEE
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY (ETGS)
Post Office Box 6193
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6193
http://www.discoveret.org/etgs
| President | Tony Tingle | The IT Group | 865-690-3211 | geofolks@worldnet.att.net |
| Vice President | Your Name Could Appear Here | NEED VOLUNTEER!! | ||
| Secretary/Treasurer | Loren Demaree | Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc | loren.demaree@jacobs.com | |
| Newsletter Editor/WebMaster | Carla Sparks | Tenera Energy | 865-560-0354 (ext. 118) | csparks@tenera.com |
| Field Trip Coordinator | Mark Joop | The IT Group | mjoop@theitgroup.com | |
Membership Committee |
Jim Morgan | ARCADIS Geraghty & Miller | 865-481-3000 | jmorgan@arcadis-us.com |
| Mark Joop | The IT Group | mjoop@theitgroup.com |
TENNESSEE SECTION
of the
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGISTS (AIPG)
http://www.aipg.org
President, Chris
Maner, Tenn Dept of Env and Conserv (TDEC),
cmaner@mail.state.tn.us
Secretary/Treasurer, Ken Haislip
ETGS/AIPG Liason, John Hofer,
jhofer@theitgroup.com
Page updated May 20, 2018 |