New Findings On Allegany County Fault System to Be Topic of UB Sciences Alumni Talk

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- New findings that could affect whether a nuclear-waste disposal site is located along the Clarendon-Linden Fault system in Allegany County will be discussed in a lecture to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 24 on the University at Buffalo North (Amherst) Campus.

Robert D. Jacobi, Ph.D., associate professor of geology at UB, will discuss new findings he has made on the fault system with his colleague, John C. Fountain, Ph.D., professor of geology.

The talk, ³Is There a Conflict Between Geology and Nuclear Waste Disposal? Allegany County, An Example,² will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Room 215 of the Natural Sciences Complex on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. Free and open to the public, it will be part of the UB Sciences Alumni Association lecture series.

Jacobi, who with Fountain has studied this fault system extensively, will discuss their latest findings, including a clear indication that the system is comprised not of a single fault, but of at least several parallel fault zones both at the surface and below it.

He will discuss their conclusion that while there is little probability of a large-magnitude earthquake occurring on the fault system in the next 10,000 years, aspects of the site¹s geological history suggest that locating a nuclear waste disposal site along the fault system would require more money and resources than would areas outside of it.

The study included analyses of local rocks and their structures at more than 1,000 sites, as well as techniques involving geochemistry, remote sensing and paleoseismology, among others. Data collected were then entered into a geographic information system and analyzed.

The Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics comprises the departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Mathematics and Physics.

For more information about the lecture, contact Cindy Nydahl at 645-2531.