Gargantuan Mine Filled With Hot Nuclear Waste Planned Alongside the Lake District's Major Geological Fault- what could go wrong?
Who is advising on the digging of this mass void? The rejected Cumbria coal boss Mark Kirkbride just the man to advise on digging a mass void to fill with plutonium next to a major fault.
Nuclear Waste Services are keen to keep schtum about the ongoing research into what a very deep (1000 metres) sub-sea, very large (25km square) and very hot (200 degrees centigrade) nuclear dump with access mine shafts onshore would mean for the stability of the Lake District's Major Geological Fault called prosaically enough "The Lake District Boundary Fault."
Lakes Against Nuclear Dump have put together a map based on Nuclear Waste Services "Areas of Focus" with the British Geological Survey's Map of the Lake District Boundary Fault overlain so people can see how utterly reckless with the safety of Cumbria and our neighbours worldwide this plan is.
Nuclear Waste Services, and their patsy "Community Partnerships" are holding ‘drop in’ events for the limited “Areas of Focus” who are also in reciept of £Millions of bribe money for taking part in this “process” to “deliver a geological disposal facility”. The Government advisor (key member of Committee of Radioactive Waste Management) on the digging of the mass void in which to dump nuclear wastes is none other than the rejected Cumbria coal mine boss Mark Kirkbride. Nuclear Waste Services and their advisors at the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management are pretending that a deep mine in which to abandon very hot nuclear wastes in Cumbria (or anywhere) is "settled science" it is not. It is an ongoing experiment where all the elements of the experiment are not only not understood but new research is throwing up new mass voids in understanding and new complexities, meanwhile ever more complex nuclear waste streams are being pushed like there is no tomorrow from new so called Small Modular nuclear reactors.
Just one of the research projects into the Lake District Boundary Fault is being undertaken by The Dept of Earth Sciences at Durham University
Research STUDENTSHIP PROPOSAL — 2024 http://www.dur.ac.uk/earth.sciences/postgraduate/
"Reactivation and mineralisation associated with the Lake District Boundary Fault
1. Background
The Lake District Boundary Fault (LDBF) defines the western edge of the Lake District massif and separates it from the East Irish Sea basin. The LDBF is a prominent expression of an extensive NNW-SSE- striking fault system that developed across northern England that display complex, variable histories of faulting and reactivation. The geometrical and tem- poral complexity of the LDFZ emerged during exten- sive drilling and onshore/offshore seismic acquisition during UK NIREX Ltd investigations for potential re- pository sites in the 1990s. In summary, parts of the LDBF may have originated as Early Paleozoic intra- arc rift faults. Reactivation occurred during Siluro-De- vonian transtension before Permo-Triassic rifting formed the East Irish Sea basin margin with intervening episodes of Acadian, Variscan and Cenozoic in- version variously invoked. The Mesozoic activity and extensive hematite mineralisation is well docu- mented for the LDBF with step-overs between fault segments and open fissures acting as foci for miner- alisation in carbonate host rocks (Fig. 1). Motivation for this study is provided by renewed interest in the LDBF because it largely defines the west coast of Cumbria which has significant current and potentially future infrastructure sites (e.g. Sellafield and potential GDF sites) and any possibility of fault-related hazard needs to be fully assessed. More broadly the East Irish Sea basin is being considered for fluid repository projects and a better understanding of the NNW-SSE faults that are the major structural elements in the basin is desirable.
2. Aims and methods
This project will combine an integrated onshore/off- shore structural data collection with a geochronology study of fault and mineralisation products to produce a new understanding of the LDBF, its reactivation and mineralisation history. The study aims and methods are: 1) To (re)assess the structural history of the LDBF through detailed fieldwork onshore and geophysical and marine datasets offshore. This will enable structural model building and paleostress analysis. Field- work will also be critical to evaluate the extent and nature of the hematite and other mineralization and enable the collection of key samples for follow-up studies. 2) Re-evaluation of the LDBF and related structures in light of recent Durham work highlighting the role of fissure systems in carbonate host rocks from sub-un- conformity basement terrains and their importance for fluid storage and transmissivity. Figure 1: Hematite/calcite minerali- sation at Hodbarrow Point formed in step-over in the Ha- verigg Fault – a strand of the LDBF. Note obliquely plunging slicken- sides. Notebook for scale.
3. Scientific benefits
1. New detailed field description and characterisation of the LDFZ and related structures exposed onshore with constraints from offshore drilling and publically available geophysical datasets. 2. Demonstrate that state-of-the-art methodologies are required to understand fault and mineralisation histories and a new assessment of evidence for potential fissuring processes.
4. Training
• Industry-relevant research experience – with good opportunities for onshore/offshore structural inter- pretation and modelling. • Constraining genetic histories of fault and fissure evolution and associated mineralisation.
Reading
Akhurst, M.C., Barnes, R.P., Chadwick, R.A., Millward, D., Norton, M.G., Maddock, R.H., Kimbell, G.S. and Milodowski, A.E., 1998. Structural evolution of the Lake District boundary fault zone in west Cumbria, UK. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, 52(2), pp.139-158. Needham, T.I.M. and Morgan, R., 1997. The East Irish Sea and adjacent basins: new faults or old?. Journal of the Geological Society, 154(1), pp.145-150. Soper, N.J. and Woodcock, N.H., 2003. The lost Lower Old Red Sandstone of England and Wales: a record of post-Iapetan flexure or Early Devonian transtension?. Geological Magazine, 140(6), pp.627-647. Tamas, A., Holdsworth, R.E., Tamas, D.M., Dempsey, E.D., Hardman, K., Bird, A., Roberts, N.M.W., Lee, J., Underhill, J.R., McCarthy, D. and McCaffrey, K.J.W., 2023. Older than you think: using U–Pb calcite geochronology to better constrain basin-bounding fault reactivation, Inner Moray Firth Basin, western North Sea. Journal of the Geological Society, 180(5 pp.jgs2022-166. McCaffrey, K.J.W., Holdsworth, R.E., Pless, J., Franklin, B.S.G., & Hardman, K. 2020. Basement reservoir plumbing: fracture aperture, length and topology analysis of the Lewisian Complex, NW Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society, 177, 1281-1293
A local resident has sent this .."From memory this "Boundary" fault has a down throw of 1 000 feet 300m. I think its the result of isostatic balance. (The earth crust is floating on the mantle. During the ice age, 10 000 years ago, Cumbria land was covered with 600m of ice which pushed the land down. This ice was not present over the sea. Since, the ice melted, the mass of ice removed, the land, Lake District has been rising.
There is another fault, The Annie Lowther Fault running roughly North south up the Duddon Estuary, & separating Hodbarrow Hematite Mine; the Old Mine from the new Mine. Has a down throw of 30m. 23 million tons of Hematite removed. Now the RSPB reserve. Duddon Estuary SSSI & Ramsar international wet land site.)
The shaft at Moorbank near Haverigg is 590ft deep. The Old Mine shafts were less deep.
In the 80s a fight with Blue Anchor Cumbria & developers (See BA Skegness) large parts of the site, 177 acers, was ruled out as a caravan site due subsidence.
Hodbarrow Mine is reclaimed from the sea. It had two sea walls both failed. The
third, Outer Barrier, 120 years old is failing. This barrier is is Millom & Haverigg sea barrier. Much of Millom is built on reclaimed tidal mud flats.....when the barrier fails much of Millom & Haverigg will be inundated. The caravans on the Moorbank area of the Mine are metres BELOW 'high water springs'.
The 'Outer barrier' 'cut off' is mild steel. Pile driven, it some times did not seal driven into shingle. Outside this steel is 'puddled clay' & this is protected by concrete blocks. These blocks are breaking up. Rising storm sea water will wash the clay away. There are several signs of subsidence on the Outer Barrier & in the Old Mine area.
At Moorbank, a caravan site of top Moorbank filled shaft. Near is a large 40metre
wide, filled, subsidence hole, near Steel Green House.
Note; the Old Mine, East of Annie Lowther Fault was not back filled with sand, There are huge voids, Pillar & Stall, covered by a limestone pie crust, some of these are supported by 'wood rises'
At Haverigg Pool, there is a 'New', 30 years or so, sea wall. Before this wall was built much of Haverigg used to flood to the seventh step in peoples houses. The flood water will come up under the walls, as did the sewage to flood housing. Millom & Haverigg sewage, possibly the Prison Camp as well has to be pumped to the Sewage works. There is no separation between foul & surface water. Rain means untreated sewage direct to the sea.
Now the water rises to about 100mm from the top of this wall. Waves slop over.
'Pool Side' Beck is tidal almost to Silecroft about, three miles. Waingate Bridge hamlet road floods to about 600mm.
There is a grassed earth sea barrier running north, Millom to Duddon Bridge.
High tides here are close to topping this embankment. This Barrier also protects Millom, & much of the usable farm in the Millom & Haverigg Area. Before this embankment the tide used to surround Millom Castle & much of Millom. Again, Global warming threatens much of the farm land here. As is happening world wide London Tokyo New York, etc!
At Kirksanton, north of Millom & Haverigg, site of the rejected Kirksanton Nuke station, the land is protected by sand dunes. Land behind the dunes is a flood plane, & back to Haverigg. They are building on it NOW! "
Comment from Frances McKie…. I remember that this earthquake shocked the living daylights out of the Frank Feates /Sir Denys Wilkinson team who had been sent to Galloway in the 1970s to declare that Mullwharchar was an ideal spot to test drill for a high level nuclear waste dump...because it was so stable..... etc...The earthquake happened just before the opening of the planning inquiry in Ayr in which we were not allowed to consider the risks of nuclear waste dumps...but only the impact of test drilling. Then we were leaked the letter which confirmed they were in Galloway primarily because we were sparsely populated, unsophisticated and unlikely to make a fuss. In other words...they thought they could get away with it. There is no science involved in 2025 either. This hole is to hide the stuff...that's all . They know it will leak .... could there even be critical mass????They don't care ....they figure Cumbria is easily sorted with more economic blackmail...remote and expendable...just like Galloway and Caithness. The nuclear lobby has taken over in Westminster and the two great white elephants at Hinkley and Sizewell are going to make a lot more uncontainable nuclear waste. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70169217