Amargosa Desert Research Site Completed
In 1976, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began studies of unsaturated zone hydrology at a site in the Amargosa Desert near Beatty, Nevada, as part of the USGS Low-Level Radioactive Waste Program. The site is near disposal trenches for civilian waste.
Over the years, USGS investigations at the Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) have provided long-term "benchmark" information about the hydraulic characteristics and soil-water movement for both natural-site conditions and simulated waste-site conditions in an arid environment. In 1995, as a result of finding elevated concentrations of tritium and carbon-14 in the unsaturated zone beneath the ADRS, the scope of research was broadened to improve understanding of processes affecting contaminant transport and release to environmental receptors. The ADRS was incorporated into the USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program in 1997. The site serves as a field laboratory for multidisciplinary, collaborative research that involves scientists from research institutes, universities, National laboratories, and the USGS.
Current Research
Field-intensive research on water, gas, and chemical movement in the environment is being supported by multiple lines of data:
- Weather, evapotranspiration, and plant data
- Subsurface moisture, temperature, gas, and ground-water monitoring
- Soil and sediment properties; geology; geophysics; and microbiology
Mixed-waste, point-source contaminant studies include:
- Tritium
- Radiocarbon
- Volatile-organic compounds
- Mercury
Natural, non-point-source contaminant studies include:
- Perchlorate
Perchlorate has emerged as an environmental contaminant of concern in drinking water and food. Natural perchlorate forms in the atmosphere and soil, plant, and atmospheric-deposition samples are being used to evaluate factors controlling its accumulation and cycling in desert environments.
Field and laboratory data are being integrated with numerical modeling to develop predictive tools for assessing chemical transport and fate in the environment.
Methods are being developed to improve characterization of physical, chemical, and biological factors that control hydrologic and chemical-transport processes.
Overall Research Objectives
- Improve quantitative understanding of arid-site processes affecting contaminant transport and release to environmental receptors by integrating existing and new information into physically based numerical and analytical models.
- Fill gaps in present knowledge of soil–plant–atmosphere interactions in arid regions with respect to water, gas, and contaminant transport. Explain effects of such interactions on transport processes and on environmental health through analyses of spatial and temporal heterogeneities and trends, and through targeted data collection.
- Develop efficient methods for characterizing anthropogenically introduced and naturally occurring contaminant distributions in order to test theories of flow and transport processes at the field scale.
Use of Results
Results of studies at the Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) are contributing to the characterization and understanding of arid-site processes. The findings have far reaching implications for water resources management in such environments, both in terms of waste disposal and of ground-water availability. Long-term, benchmark information and the testing and development of methods and models at the ADRS have helped others in their characterization of flow and transport processes at other arid sites in the United States and the World.
"I just read the article, "Plant-Based Plume-Scale Mapping of Tritium Contamination in Desert Soils," and wanted to express my appreciation. This is the first time anyone has mapped subsurface vapor-phase tritium migration using plants, but I doubt it will be the last. The technique that your team worked out, and the quality of the verification that was conducted, virtually ensure that this method will be used again and again. Providing a new technique that saves both time and money without sacrificing data quality is a real contribution, and one which may improve characterization of many environmental sites."
Steve Rock, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, written communication, 2005
"I have found the paleohydrologic investigations of the USGS involving sub-soil nitrates and chlorides in arid regions to be both instructive and relevant to my current research endeavors with perchlorate and oxy-anions."
Gregory Harvey, Environmental Safety and Health Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, written communication, 2004.
"I would like to thank all of the ADRS research team, and especially you for the cooperation and help that allowed us to perform our study at the ADRS. The ADRS truly is serving as a field laboratory for the study of vadose-zone hydrology in arid regions. The long-term information and basic data gathered at the site is of benefit to many researchers that have a wide variety of interests. The generous data sharing and the up-to-date website are not only saving money and time for those doing research at the ADRS, but are also accelerating improved understanding hydrologic processes."
Weiquan Dong, Research Assistant and Ph.D. candidate, Department of Geoscience, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas, May 20, 2004
"The ADRS studies provide valuable guidelines that help establish regulatory minimums on demonstrations of adequate design, numerical modeling, and performance monitoring for alternative evapotranspiration (ET) landfill caps. The high quality, in-situ data on long-term soil- water movement verifies the realistic range of critical model parameters for the dry and sparse-vegetation conditions that often prevail in parts of Montana. The ADRS studies also provide insights on the effects of plants and soil properties on cap performance, and suggest that ET cap performance may actually improve over the 30 years of landfill post-closure care."
Tim Stepp, Montana Department of Environmental Quality, written communication, 2002.
"Research activities at the Amargosa Desert Research Site are of great inspiration on the aspect of waste disposal in arid environments, of which so little is known. Results of the Amargosa Desert studies will be of great help in our work to identify suitable sites and to develop guidelines for waste disposal in Namibia, a country with a highly variable climatic setting and large areas that receive very limited precipitation, such as the Namib and Kalahari Deserts."
Sindila Mwiya, Engineering and Environment Subdivision, Geological Survey of Namibia, written communication, 2001.
"Soil-water measurement technology developed at the Amargosa Desert Research Site is being used to assess the hydrologic performance of an evapotranspiration landfill cover at the US Army Fort Carson military base, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The techniques provide a means to assess the performance of unconventional landfill covers that can be constructed at a considerably lower cost than conventional covers."
Patrick McGuire, Senior Soil Scientist, Earth Tech, Sheboygan, WI and Donald Moses, Chief, HTW Geotechnical Section, Engineering Division, US Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha, NE, written communication, 2001.
This work is of particular interest to regulators, U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy, and industry professionals because it is the first alternative landfill-cover design to be approved by the state of Colorado.
Under a contract from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has requested ADRS multiple-year meteorologic and hydrologic data for use in the development of numerical models for calculating water movement through the unsaturated zone at low-level radioactive waste sites. Water-flux meters designed by PNNL have also been installed at the ADRS in a collaborative effort (1) to test, under hyper-arid climate conditions, the performance of meters which are being used to document net water infiltration into waste covers at the Hanford site and (2) to support the ADRS study of vadose-zone transport. The water-flux meter installation and testing effort is supported by U.S. Department of Energy (SUBCON) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission funding. (Glendon Gee, Senior Staff Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, personal communication, 2001).
Additional web pages for this project are listed below.
Below are data or web applications associated with this project.
Most publications for research at the ADRS are listed below. Citations for additional publications can be found here:
Supplemental Amargosa Desert Research Station Publications
Volatile organic compounds in the unsaturated zone from radioactive wastes
Waste isolation and contaminant migration - Tools and techniques for monitoring the saturated zone-unsaturated zone-plant-atmosphere continuum
Estimating groundwater recharge
Interacting vegetative and thermal contributions to water movement in desert soil
Characterization of geologic deposits in the vicinity of US Ecology, Amargosa Basin, southern Nevada
Natural chlorate in the environment: Application of a new IC-ESI/MS/MS method with a Cl18O3- internal standard
Inventories and mobilization of unsaturated zone sulfate, fluoride, and chloride related to land use change in semiarid regions, southwestern United States and Australia
Case study of a full-scale evapotranspiration cover
High-quality unsaturated zone hydraulic property data for hydrologic applications
UZIG USGS research: Advances through interdisciplinary interaction
Resistivity profiling for mapping gravel layers that may control contaminant migration at the Amargosa Desert Research Site, Nevada
Portable chamber measurements of evapotranspiration at the Amargosa Desert Research Site near Beatty, Nye County, Nevada, 2003-06
- Overview
In 1976, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began studies of unsaturated zone hydrology at a site in the Amargosa Desert near Beatty, Nevada, as part of the USGS Low-Level Radioactive Waste Program. The site is near disposal trenches for civilian waste.
Over the years, USGS investigations at the Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) have provided long-term "benchmark" information about the hydraulic characteristics and soil-water movement for both natural-site conditions and simulated waste-site conditions in an arid environment. In 1995, as a result of finding elevated concentrations of tritium and carbon-14 in the unsaturated zone beneath the ADRS, the scope of research was broadened to improve understanding of processes affecting contaminant transport and release to environmental receptors. The ADRS was incorporated into the USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program in 1997. The site serves as a field laboratory for multidisciplinary, collaborative research that involves scientists from research institutes, universities, National laboratories, and the USGS.
Current Research
Field-intensive research on water, gas, and chemical movement in the environment is being supported by multiple lines of data:
- Weather, evapotranspiration, and plant data
- Subsurface moisture, temperature, gas, and ground-water monitoring
- Soil and sediment properties; geology; geophysics; and microbiology
Mixed-waste, point-source contaminant studies include:
- Tritium
- Radiocarbon
- Volatile-organic compounds
- Mercury
Natural, non-point-source contaminant studies include:
- Perchlorate
Perchlorate has emerged as an environmental contaminant of concern in drinking water and food. Natural perchlorate forms in the atmosphere and soil, plant, and atmospheric-deposition samples are being used to evaluate factors controlling its accumulation and cycling in desert environments.
Field and laboratory data are being integrated with numerical modeling to develop predictive tools for assessing chemical transport and fate in the environment.
Methods are being developed to improve characterization of physical, chemical, and biological factors that control hydrologic and chemical-transport processes.
Overall Research Objectives
- Improve quantitative understanding of arid-site processes affecting contaminant transport and release to environmental receptors by integrating existing and new information into physically based numerical and analytical models.
- Fill gaps in present knowledge of soil–plant–atmosphere interactions in arid regions with respect to water, gas, and contaminant transport. Explain effects of such interactions on transport processes and on environmental health through analyses of spatial and temporal heterogeneities and trends, and through targeted data collection.
- Develop efficient methods for characterizing anthropogenically introduced and naturally occurring contaminant distributions in order to test theories of flow and transport processes at the field scale.
Use of Results
Results of studies at the Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) are contributing to the characterization and understanding of arid-site processes. The findings have far reaching implications for water resources management in such environments, both in terms of waste disposal and of ground-water availability. Long-term, benchmark information and the testing and development of methods and models at the ADRS have helped others in their characterization of flow and transport processes at other arid sites in the United States and the World.
"I just read the article, "Plant-Based Plume-Scale Mapping of Tritium Contamination in Desert Soils," and wanted to express my appreciation. This is the first time anyone has mapped subsurface vapor-phase tritium migration using plants, but I doubt it will be the last. The technique that your team worked out, and the quality of the verification that was conducted, virtually ensure that this method will be used again and again. Providing a new technique that saves both time and money without sacrificing data quality is a real contribution, and one which may improve characterization of many environmental sites."
Steve Rock, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, written communication, 2005
"I have found the paleohydrologic investigations of the USGS involving sub-soil nitrates and chlorides in arid regions to be both instructive and relevant to my current research endeavors with perchlorate and oxy-anions."
Gregory Harvey, Environmental Safety and Health Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, written communication, 2004.
"I would like to thank all of the ADRS research team, and especially you for the cooperation and help that allowed us to perform our study at the ADRS. The ADRS truly is serving as a field laboratory for the study of vadose-zone hydrology in arid regions. The long-term information and basic data gathered at the site is of benefit to many researchers that have a wide variety of interests. The generous data sharing and the up-to-date website are not only saving money and time for those doing research at the ADRS, but are also accelerating improved understanding hydrologic processes."
Weiquan Dong, Research Assistant and Ph.D. candidate, Department of Geoscience, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas, May 20, 2004
"The ADRS studies provide valuable guidelines that help establish regulatory minimums on demonstrations of adequate design, numerical modeling, and performance monitoring for alternative evapotranspiration (ET) landfill caps. The high quality, in-situ data on long-term soil- water movement verifies the realistic range of critical model parameters for the dry and sparse-vegetation conditions that often prevail in parts of Montana. The ADRS studies also provide insights on the effects of plants and soil properties on cap performance, and suggest that ET cap performance may actually improve over the 30 years of landfill post-closure care."
Tim Stepp, Montana Department of Environmental Quality, written communication, 2002.
"Research activities at the Amargosa Desert Research Site are of great inspiration on the aspect of waste disposal in arid environments, of which so little is known. Results of the Amargosa Desert studies will be of great help in our work to identify suitable sites and to develop guidelines for waste disposal in Namibia, a country with a highly variable climatic setting and large areas that receive very limited precipitation, such as the Namib and Kalahari Deserts."
Sindila Mwiya, Engineering and Environment Subdivision, Geological Survey of Namibia, written communication, 2001.
"Soil-water measurement technology developed at the Amargosa Desert Research Site is being used to assess the hydrologic performance of an evapotranspiration landfill cover at the US Army Fort Carson military base, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The techniques provide a means to assess the performance of unconventional landfill covers that can be constructed at a considerably lower cost than conventional covers."
Patrick McGuire, Senior Soil Scientist, Earth Tech, Sheboygan, WI and Donald Moses, Chief, HTW Geotechnical Section, Engineering Division, US Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha, NE, written communication, 2001.
This work is of particular interest to regulators, U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy, and industry professionals because it is the first alternative landfill-cover design to be approved by the state of Colorado.
Under a contract from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has requested ADRS multiple-year meteorologic and hydrologic data for use in the development of numerical models for calculating water movement through the unsaturated zone at low-level radioactive waste sites. Water-flux meters designed by PNNL have also been installed at the ADRS in a collaborative effort (1) to test, under hyper-arid climate conditions, the performance of meters which are being used to document net water infiltration into waste covers at the Hanford site and (2) to support the ADRS study of vadose-zone transport. The water-flux meter installation and testing effort is supported by U.S. Department of Energy (SUBCON) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission funding. (Glendon Gee, Senior Staff Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, personal communication, 2001).
- Science
Additional web pages for this project are listed below.
- Data
Below are data or web applications associated with this project.
- Publications
Most publications for research at the ADRS are listed below. Citations for additional publications can be found here:
Supplemental Amargosa Desert Research Station Publications
Filter Total Items: 87Volatile organic compounds in the unsaturated zone from radioactive wastes
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are often comingled with low-level radioactive wastes (LLRW), but little is known about subsurface VOC emanations from LLRW landfills. The current study systematically quantified VOCs associated with LLRW over an 11-yr period at the USGS Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) in southwestern Nevada. Unsaturated-zone gas samples of VOCs were collected by adsorption oAuthorsRonald J. Baker, Brian J. Andraski, David A. Stonestrom, Wentai LuoWaste isolation and contaminant migration - Tools and techniques for monitoring the saturated zone-unsaturated zone-plant-atmosphere continuum
In 1976 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began studies of unsaturated zone hydrology next to the Nation’s first commercial disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) near Beatty, NV. Recognizing the need for long-term data collection, the USGS in 1983 established research management areas in the vicinity of the waste-burial facility through agreements with the Bureau of Land ManagemAuthorsBrian J. Andraski, David A. StonestromEstimating groundwater recharge
Groundwater recharge is the entry of fresh water into the saturated portion of the subsurface part of the hydrologic cycle, the modifier “saturated” indicating that the pressure of the pore water is greater than atmospheric. Briefly stated, recharge is downward flux across the water table. The term “groundwater recharge” can refer either to the multiple interacting processes generating and controlAuthorsDavid A. StonestromInteracting vegetative and thermal contributions to water movement in desert soil
Thermally driven water‐vapor flow can be an important component of total water movement in bare soil and in deep unsaturated zones, but this process is often neglected when considering the effects of soil–plant–atmosphere interactions on shallow water movement. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the coupled and separate effects of vegetative and thermal‐gradient contributions to soil waAuthorsC.A. Garcia, Brian J. Andraski, David A. Stonestrom, C.A. Cooper, Jirka Šimůnek, S.W. WheatcraftCharacterization of geologic deposits in the vicinity of US Ecology, Amargosa Basin, southern Nevada
Multiple approaches have been applied to better understand the characteristics of geologic units exposed at the surface and buried at depth in the vicinity of US Ecology (USE), a low-level commercial waste site in the northern Amargosa Desert, Nevada. Techniques include surficial geologic mapping and interpretation of the subsurface using borehole data. Dated deposits at depth were used to estimatAuthorsEmily M. TaylorNatural chlorate in the environment: Application of a new IC-ESI/MS/MS method with a Cl18O3- internal standard
A new ion chromatography electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (IC-ESI/MS/MS) method has been developed for quantification and confirmation of chlorate (ClO3−) in environmental samples. The method involves the electro-chemical generation of isotopically labeled chlorate internal standard (Cl18O3−) using 18O water (H218O). The standard was added to all samples prior to analysis thereby minimizing tAuthorsBalaji Rao, Paul B. Hatzinger, John K. Böhlke, Neil C. Sturchio, Brian J. Andraski, Frank D. Eckardt, W. Andrew JacksonInventories and mobilization of unsaturated zone sulfate, fluoride, and chloride related to land use change in semiarid regions, southwestern United States and Australia
Unsaturated zone salt reservoirs are potentially mobilized by increased groundwater recharge as semiarid lands are cultivated. This study explores the amounts of pore water sulfate and fluoride relative to chloride in unsaturated zone profiles, evaluates their sources, estimates mobilization due to past land use change, and assesses the impacts on groundwater quality. Inventories of water‐extractaAuthorsBridget R. Scanlon, David A. Stonestrom, Robert C. Reedy, Fred W. Leaney, John Gates, Richard G. CresswellCase study of a full-scale evapotranspiration cover
The design, construction, and performance analyses of a 6.1ha evapotranspiration (ET) landfill cover at the semiarid U.S. Army Fort Carson site, near Colorado Springs, Colo. are presented. Initial water-balance model simulations, using literature reported soil hydraulic data, aided selection of borrow-source soil type(s) that resulted in predictions of negligible annual drainage (⩽1mm∕year). FinalAuthorsPatrick E. McGuire, Brian J. Andraski, Ryan E. ArchibaldHigh-quality unsaturated zone hydraulic property data for hydrologic applications
In hydrologic studies, especially those using dynamic unsaturated zone moisture modeling, calculations based on property transfer models informed by hydraulic property databases are often used in lieu of measured data from the site of interest. Reliance on database-informed predicted values has become increasingly common with the use of neural networks. High-quality data are needed for databases uAuthorsKimberlie Perkins, John R. NimmoUZIG USGS research: Advances through interdisciplinary interaction
BBecause vadose zone research relates to diverse disciplines, applications, and modes of research, collaboration across traditional operational and topical divisions is especially likely to yield major advances in understanding. The Unsaturated Zone Interest Group (UZIG) is an informal organization sponsored by the USGS to encourage and support interdisciplinary collaboration in vadose or unsaturaAuthorsJ. R. Nimmo, Brian J. Andraski, M.-C. RafaelResistivity profiling for mapping gravel layers that may control contaminant migration at the Amargosa Desert Research Site, Nevada
Gaseous contaminants, including CFC 113, chloroform, and tritiated compounds, move preferentially in unsaturated subsurface gravel layers away from disposal trenches at a closed low-level radioactive waste-disposal facility in the Amargosa Desert about 17 kilometers south of Beatty, Nevada. Two distinct gravel layers are involved in contaminant transport: a thin, shallow layer between about 0.5 anAuthorsJeffrey E. Lucius, Jared D. Abraham, Bethany L. BurtonPortable chamber measurements of evapotranspiration at the Amargosa Desert Research Site near Beatty, Nye County, Nevada, 2003-06
Portable chamber measurements of evapotranspiration (ET) were made at the U.S. Geological Survey's Amargosa Desert Research Site in southern Nevada to help quantify component- and landscape-scale contributions to ET in an arid environment. Evapotranspiration data were collected approximately every 3 months from 2003 to 2006. Chamber measurements of ET were partitioned into bare-soil evaporation anAuthorsC. Amanda Garcia, Michael J. Johnson, Brian J. Andraski, Keith J. Halford, C. Justin Mayers