Scope and Objectives

Following the success of the three earlier meetings on "Clays in natural and engineered barriers for radioactive waste confinement", respectively held in Reims (December 2002), Tours (March 2005), Lille (September 2007), as well as the continuing interest of the international scientific community regarding this subject, the Scientific Committee of the meeting - in agreement with the overall opinion of the participants - recommended the organization of a fourth meeting on the same general topic.

The purpose of this fourth international meeting is, once again, to bring together specialists in the different disciplines related to clays and clay minerals, together with scientists from organizations involved in disposal of radioactive waste, in order to evaluate the progress of research conducted in that field.

Multidisciplinary approaches including geology, mineralogy, geochemistry, rheology, physics and chemistry of clay minerals and assemblages are required in order to provide a detailed characterization of the geological host formations considered for the disposal of radioactive waste and to assess the behaviour of engineered and natural barriers when submitted to various types of perturbations induced by such facilities. The evaluation of the performance of the natural barrier, as well as of the impact of repository-induced disturbances upon the confinement properties of clay-rich geological formations constitutes the major objectives of the experimental programs being, or to be, conducted in underground laboratories for interpreting the subsequent scientific results, for modelling the long-term behaviour of radioactive waste repositories and for carrying out safety assessment exercises.

The meeting covers all the aspects of clay characterization and behaviour considered at the various time and space scales relevant to confinement of radionuclides in clay; from basic phenomenological processes description to the global understanding of the performance and safety at repository and geological scales.

In this context, the meeting will also offer a particular opportunity to present the more recent developments and main outputs of research carried out within the framework of international cooperative experiments and dedicated European projects.