Laboratory Noble Gas Migration Experiments Through Rock

The Underground Nuclear Explosion Signature Experiment (UNESE) is a multi-laboratory effort to improve U.S. capabilities to detect, locate, identify, and characterize underground nuclear explosions. Here we present a lab-scale experiment developed to test advective gas transport though rock samples at in-situ conditions, and results of tests performed at ambient conditions on rocks collected from the site of a field-scale experiment. Gas transport results are compared to pore and fracture networks of the same samples characterized by micro-CT and petrographic microscopy. Future work will use this experimental apparatus to interrogate advective gas transport at a variety of relevant pressure and temperature conditions.