Initial Geological Unsuitability Screening of West Cumbria
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Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: Initial Geological Unsuitability Screening of West Cumbria Commissioned Report CR/10/072 BRITISH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY GEOLOGY AND LANDSCAPE, ENGLAND COMMISSIONED REPORT CR/10/072 Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: Initial Geological Unsuitability Screening of West The National Grid and other Cumbria Ordnance Survey data are used with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Licence No: 100017897/ 2010. J H Powell, C N Waters, D Millward and N S Robins Keywords Report; Sub-surface screening; West Cumbria MRWS Partnership; Managing Contributors: L Hughes and H V Cullen Radioactive Waste Safely; DECC; geology; hydrogeology; geological disposal Front cover: Digital terrain model area showing the topography of the Allerdale- Copeland area. NEXTMap Britain elevation data from Intermap Technologies. Bibliographical reference POWELL, J.H., WATERS, C.N., MILLWARD, D, and ROBINS, N.S. 2010. Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: Initial Geological Unsuitability Screening of West Cumbria British Geological Survey Research Report, CR/10/072. 73pp. Copyright in materials derived from the British Geological Survey’s work is owned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and/or the authority that commissioned the work. You may not copy or adapt this publication without first obtaining permission. Contact the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Section, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, e-mail [email protected]. You may quote extracts of a reasonable length without prior permission, provided a full acknowledgement is given of the source of the extract. Maps and diagrams in this book use topography based on Ordnance Survey mapping. © NERC 2010. All rights reserved Keyworth, Nottingham British Geological Survey 2010 BRITISH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY The full range of our publications is available from BGS British Geological Survey offices shops at Nottingham, Edinburgh, London and Cardiff (Welsh publications only) see contact details below or shop online at www.geologyshop.com BGS Central Enquiries Desk Tel 0115 936 3143 Fax 0115 936 3276 The London Information Office also maintains a reference collection of BGS publications, including maps, for email [email protected] consultation. We publish an annual catalogue of our maps and other Kingsley Dunham Centre, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 publications; this catalogue is available online or from any of 5GG the BGS shops. 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Additional comments were received from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Environment Agency, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. We are grateful to Gavin Thompson of the Environment Agency for providing access to data on groundwater in the Partnership area. The Environment Agency, CoRWM, NDA and the peer reviewers appointed by the West Cumbria MRWS Partnership were given the opportunity to comment on the draft report as described in the White Paper ‘Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: A framework for implementing geological disposal’ (Defra et al., 2008). As commissioning body, DECC commented on the draft report in terms of presentation and on it meeting the requirements set out in the MRWS White Paper, as well as assisting with the factual background. We thank Dr Maxine Akhurst, Dr John Bloomfield and Andy Chadwick of the British Geological Survey for internally reviewing the first draft of the report and for their helpful comments on the text and figures. We are grateful to Henry Holbrook and Simon Ward for preparing the figures, and to Leanne Hughes and Hannah Cullen for developing the project Geographic Information System (GIS) from which many of the figures are derived. Thanks go to Tony Myers and Ricky Terrington for their advice and help with the 3D visualisation figures. i CR/10/072 MRWS: Initial Geological Unsuitability Screening of West Cumbria Contents Acknowledgements................................................................................................................i Contents................................................................................................................................ ii Non Technical Summary .....................................................................................................1 1 Introduction...................................................................................................................7 1.1 Purpose of the report .......................................................................................................7 1.2 Structure of the report .....................................................................................................8 1.3 Geological information used in the report ......................................................................8 1.4 Geological data – spatial distribution and uncertainty....................................................9 2 Summary Description of the Geology and Hydrogeology of the Partnership Area ......... 12 2.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................12 2.2 Lower Palaeozoic rocks ................................................................................................15 2.2.1 Skiddaw Group .......................................................................................................15 2.2.2 Borrowdale and Eycott volcanic groups.................................................................15 2.2.3 Windermere Supergroup.........................................................................................16 2.2.4 Intrusive igneous rocks ...........................................................................................16 2.3 Carboniferous rocks ......................................................................................................17 2.3.1 Ravenstonedale Group............................................................................................17 2.3.2 Great Scar Limestone Group ..................................................................................17 2.3.3 Border Group ..........................................................................................................18 2.3.4 Yoredale Group.......................................................................................................18 2.3.5 Pennine Coal Measures Group................................................................................18 2.3.6 Warwickshire Group...............................................................................................18 2.4 Permian, Triassic and Jurassic rocks.............................................................................19 2.4.1 Appleby Group........................................................................................................20 2.4.2 Cumbrian Coast Group ...........................................................................................20 2.4.3 Sherwood Sandstone Group....................................................................................20 2.4.4 Mercia Mudstone Group.........................................................................................22 2.4.5 Penarth and Lias groups..........................................................................................22 2.5 Quaternary superficial deposits.....................................................................................22 3 Geological Sub-surface Screening Criteria...............................................................24 3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................24 3.2 Natural Resources .........................................................................................................25 3.3 Groundwater..................................................................................................................25