Advances in west Cumbrian geology resulting from the NIREX investigations around Sellafield: convenors’ review

Abstract

The geological investigations around Sellafield, west Cumbria, by UK NIREX Ltd, are the largest ever carried out in Britain. They are part of a site characterization process to assess the suitability of the area for the construction of an underground radioactive waste repository. These investigations have required scales of study ranging from the microscopic examination of individual fractures up to regional assessments of much of north-west England and the adjacent East Irish Sea Basin. The investigations have drawn heavily on the existing geological literature relating to west Cumbria and surrounding areas. It is, therefore, fitting that some of the new insights into the geology of the Sellafield area, gained from the extensive NIREX acquisition and interpretation programmes, should be made publicly available. The meeting of the Yorkshire Geological Society on Saturday, 9 October, 1993, at the British Geological Survey, Kingsley Dunham Centre, Keyworth, with the title ‘Advances in west Cumbrian geology resulting from the NIREX investigations around Sellafield’, is reviewed in this account. It was co-sponsored by UK NIREX Ltd and the British Geological Survey, and had the aim of bringing to a wider geological audience some of the new geological data and results, and their wider implications. The three sessions were chaired by Dr P. R. Ineson (President of the Yorkshire Geological Society), Dr R. Chaplow (UK NIREX Ltd) and Dr P. M. Allen (Assistant Director, British Geological Survey). More than 150 people attended. The speakers at the meeting (indicated by *) were drawn from the British Geological Survey, ...