PSU Magazine Spring 1987

were used. The most common was visually inspecting the minerals under a microscope. However, they also often underwent any or all of several other tests: 1 - They might have been sent to x-ray, perhaps to answer specific questions the researchers had. 2 - They might have been pulverized into a powder, sent to Oregon State University in Corvallis to be irradiated, and then returned to PSU for analysis of radioactive decay to determine the concentration of elements. 3 - They might have been put through a heating and cooling process that enabled the researcher to deter– mine at what temperature the minerals form. 4 - And they might have been sent to Arizona where the sample was sliced microscopically thin o its mineralogy and changes in its mineralogy could be assessed through the optical effects of having light pass through it. The gathering and analyzing of samples occupied much of 1986, from the beginning of the two-year contract in January through September. Then in October the scientists turned their attention to synthesizing and interpreting the data. The first report, 80 pages long, was shipped to Rockwell Hanford Operations in Richland, Washington, late in 1986. More reports were planned. "They first go to Rockwell," says Cummings. "Then, after their comment and our response, they probably will be published as Depart– ment of Energy documents. Then we'll be synthesizing information from those reports to be published in open journals, articles going for .peer review. We expect to be writing until the end of the contract in December of this year (1987)." The initial report to Rockwell estab– lishes the framework for understanding the alteration in basalt. "Since there hasn't been a lot of work done in natural systems related to low-tempera– ture alteration, there's not much in the literature we can use, so a lot of it has to be generated from the work we're doing," explains Cummings. "One of the big questions we're dealing with is the uniformity of the composition of a solution during alteration . If there are differences in that solution's composition, what is producing it? What often happens in geology is that the same end products can be generated by different methods. We have what has been produced and we're trying to argue back to the process. It's a lot of detective work." Calling their Grande Ronde outcrop– ping "a marvelous world of detail ," Cummings sees benefits from their field work and laboratory analysis that go beyond the Hanford nuclear waste question. This project could shed light on the location of water resources in eastern Oregon, the origin of nitrogen in the gas field in Mist, Oregon, and PSU MAGAZINE PAGE 8 A basalt outcropping along the Grande Ronde River in eastern Oregon provided Cummings with the natural analogue he needed, and has yielded data useful beyond the Hanford project. even the formation of the Cascade Mountains. "Your own greatest handi– cap is the limitations of your imagina– tion ," says Cummings of this kind of scientific inquiry. As for whether Hanford is a safe site for a nuclear waste repository, Cummings is more circumspect. "When we come to the end of our study," he says, "we will not be able to answer the fundamental question . What we will be able to provide is information on how an analogous system has worked in the geologic environment. That information will be integrated with material that's being worked on at Hanford and, actually, throughout the world. We will become a small part of a much, much bigger picture." Michael Cummings believes that whenever the full significance of the researchers' work becomes known , it will be the result of applied science at its best. "It's really very exciting to deal with the tremendously capable people working on this question. But it's not just for fun that we spend these hours writing and laboring over this stuff," he says firmly. .!'.fill (Bob Mullin is a Portland free-lance writer. ) •