The Loch Lomond Natural Analogue is useful because of the unusual evolution of the loch over the last ten thousand years or so.

The loch has been found to have a clay bed consisting of a sediment layer of marine origin sandwiched by freshwater sediment layers.

It was assumed that the freshwater and marine sediment layers would differ in chemistry and mineralogy, this hypothesis was proven to be correct.

Since repository designs often have layers of clay as protective barriers around the waste canisters, it is therefore of the utmost importance to determine radionuclide movement in the permeable clay.

Loch Lomond, Scotland

The Loch Lomond study provided evidence that the natural elements analagous to radionuclides contained in the marine sediment layer have moved very little over more than five thousand years.