Radionuclide Transport Mechanism and In Situ Performance, Assessment of Waste Glasses, Metals and Clay Barriers of a Geological Repository: Possible Research Avenues at Puga Geothermal Field, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir

Good analogy in terms of migration of Cs, groundwater chemistry, thermal and hydraulic processes and near field geochemistry, has been noticed between the Puga Geothermal Field and a typical granite hosted nuclear waste geological repository. The former can contribute immensely for demonstration of long term degradation of material used in geological repository viz Waste glasses, Backfill and Buffer clays and rocks under the influence of varying thermal-Hydraulic and chemical conditions. It also holds good potential to study Cs migration, gas mobility and modification of groundwater chemistry, thereby providing field scale parametric values to a number of key processes of a geological repository for nuclear wastes. The results can be used to validate numerically simulated radionuclide migration pattern through various groundwater pathways.