Shallow Burial

It is this increase in scattering that is detected, and this approach has been the basis for a number of devices designed to detect buried mines. However, soil penetration is relatively poor for the 60—100 keV yrays required in these devices, thus limiting their utility to shallow burial depths... 

TRU are those containing isotopes, like 241Am and 243Am, that follow uranium in the periodic table and whose half-lives are >20 years. If their level of activity was more than 100 nanocuries of alpha-emitters per gram of waste material (up from 10 nanocuries/g in 1982), the waste could be disposed of by shallow burial. Otherwise, the waste had to be placed in retrievable storage for eventual transfer to a permanent repository. TRUs generally have low levels of radioactivity, generate very little heat, and can be handled by ordinary means without remote control (Eisenbud 1987 Murray 1994). 

Eleven major shallow burial sites exist in U.S. 3 known to be leaking... 

The geological environments for these assemblages are those of weather ing, deep-sea floor sediments and continental shelf sediments, or shallow burial of these materials as sedimentary or tuffaceous rocks. 

Land (e.g., 198S) has stressed the chemical and structural variations associated with natural dolomites, and has gone so far as to suggest that the name "dolomite" be used in the same way that the mineral name "feldspar" is used. The fact that dolomite is relatively unreactive compared to most other sedimentary carbonate minerals has severely limited experimental studies under temperature and pressure conditions that exist during shallow burial. Consequently, most information on the chemical behavior of dolomite must be obtained from observations of complex natural systems. Such observations are all too often open to multiple interpretations. 

Although cementation is a process that can occur throughout the life of a sedimentary carbonate body, the dominant processes and types of cements produced generally differ substantially between those formed in the shallow-meteoric and deep-burial environments. Mineralogic stabilization (i.e., dissolution of magnesian calcites and aragonite, see Chapter 7) commonly drives cement formation during the early shallow-burial period, whereas the previously discussed processes of pressure solution and neomorphism are more important in the deep-burial environment. The pore waters in which cementation takes place also tend to differ substantially between the two environments. In shallow subsurface environments, cementation usually takes place in dilute meteoric waters that are oxic to only... 

Shallow Burial (<200m) Deep Burial (200m to 4km) Paleozoic... 

James, N.P. and Bone Y. (1989) Petrogenesis of Cenazoic temperate water calcarenites, South Australia A model for meteoric/shallow burial diagenesis of shallow water calcite sediments. J. Sediment. Petrol. 59, 191-203. 

The other major factor that considerably retards decomposition of buried bodies is the surrounding soil environment. A body buried in soil is protected from the temperature fluctuations usually experienced in an ambient environment (Galloway, Walsh-Haney, and Byrd 2001). The extent of protection is also dependent on the depth of burial, as temperature will decrease with soil depth. In a deep burial environment, the temperature will be relatively cool, thus slowing the rate of decomposition (Rodriguez and Bass 1985). Shallow burials of less than 1 ft. will experience temperature fluctuations similar to the ambient temperature. Hence, decomposition in a shallow grave will proceed more rapidly than in a deep burial but still at a slower rate than a body decomposing on the soil surface (Rodriguez 1997 Weitzel 2005). 

Additional studies involving pig carcasses has since confirmed that buried carrion demonstrate a distinct difference in the pattern of insect succession compared with what occurs on surface carrion (Turner and Wiltshire 1999). One such study established a database of insect succession and demonstrated the potential of certain species to act as determinants of postmortem interval for buried carcasses (VanLaerhoven and Anderson 1999). Dipteran species, with the exception of the family Calliphoridae, were identified as the most useful indicator species allowing for an estimation of the minimum PMI in a shallow burial environment. This assumption is based on the hypotheses that once insects are able to locate buried remains, they will colonize, feed, and develop in a normal, predictable sequence. 

Low-level wastes (LEW) contain a negligible amount of long-lived radionuclides. Produced by peaceful nuclear activities in industry, medicine, research, and by nuclear power operations, such wastes may include items such as packaged gloves, rags, glass, small tools, paper, and filters which have been contaminated by radioactive material. Disposal in near-surface structures or shallow burial is practised widely. 

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