U.S. Geological Survey
Circular 1184 Online Version 1.0

Yucca Mountain as a Radioactive-Waste Repository

By

Thomas C. Hanks, Isaac J. Winograd, R. Ernest Anderson, Thomas E. Reilly, and Edwin P. Weeks

1999

Yucca Mountain straddles the west boundary of the Nevada Test Site in an arid,remote,and thinly populated region of southwestern Nevada. It is the potential site of a monitored geologic re- pository for the Nation Ős commercial and military spent nuclear fuel,high-level radioactive waste derived from reprocessing of uranium and pluto- nium,surplus plutonium,and other nuclear-weap- ons materials.(Collectively,these radioactive materials are known as high-level waste [HLW ] and are to be distinguished from the low-level ra- dioactive waste to be stored at the recently opened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico.)Tens of thousands of metric tons of HLW is presently stored at more than a hundred sites in 40 States (fig.1).The fundamental rationale for a geologic repository for radioactive materials is to securely isolate them from the environment and its occupants to the greatest extent possible.

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