Characterization of Glass Artifacts from the Iulia Felix and Aquileia - Man-made Analogues for Nuclear Waste Glass
EMSL Project ID
42692
Abstract
Characterization of the glasses recovered from the sunken ship, Iulia Felix and the cemented sediment that surrounded the glass can yield data useful to the archaeologists and to those responsible for disposing nuclear waste as a glass. To the archaeologist, the characterization is important because it ultimately helps in understanding the provenance (origin), production, and trading of glass. Additionally, understanding the glass-water interaction allows the development of improved conservation techniques and helps address questions surrounding the restoration of glass artifacts (cleaning, especially with respect to the removal of the alteration layers). From a nuclear waste perspective, characterization of these glasses provides results from an independent experiment that can be used to validate our ability to calculate the dissolution process under various repository conditions.Careful experimentation is needed to identify the mineral phases that exist on the surfaces of these glasses. The layers (lamellae and inter-layers) on the surfaces of these glasses are complex in the manner in which they were formed and their mineralogical and compositional composition. These layers need to be examined individually - peeled like an onion - and in total - paragenisis. This information ultimately allows one to understand better the mechanism(s) by which glasses interact with water. The distribution of components in these layers both gross and isotopic composition helps determine the provenance of the glass and the source of the elemental make up (did the elements come from the glass or the environment. Similarly, the surrounding sediment, in the case of the Iulia Felix glasses, or soil, in the case of the Aquileia artifacts, requires special analytical techniques to determine the migration of the glass components in the media immediately surrounding the artifact. We propose to use some of the EMSL capabilities to characterize these glasses and the surrounding sediment.
Project Details
Start Date
2011-01-03
End Date
2012-01-08
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members