Bertrand Thomas

French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS · Centre d'études nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan (CENBG)

A new heating and gas treatment line for Thermo-Desorption Spectrometry (TDS) of noble gases (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe) is presented. It was built with the primary objective to offer advanced temperature controls and capabilities while working in a cold environment. By choosing a high-power continuous wave laser as the heating source and using a prop...

The northern Aquitaine basin (southwest France) is a large multi-layer aquifer system that contains groundwater with strong residence-time variability ranging from years to tens of thousands of years. This system constitutes an archive of paleoclimate variations. A multi-parameter approach involving isotopic tracers (¹⁴C, ¹⁸O, ²H) was used to deter...

A double focusing sector field mass filter used in Nier–Johnson geometry has been built in order to perform Kr isotope enrichment for 81Kr and 85Kr isotopes. The principle consists in implanting Kr+ ions accelerated at 7 keV in Al foils after separation using the magnetic sector. A specific ion source has been designed capable of generating high Kr...

A new RIS-TOF instrument, called FAKIR (Facility for Analyzing Krypton Isotope Ratios), has been developed at CENBG in order to measure Kr isotope ratios with an extremely high sensitivity. The instrument uses a single color Kr ionization scheme with tunable coherent UV photons near 216.6 nm. A two-photon resonance excitation allows it to reach the...

Before the excavation of the new gallery Ga08 in the Mont Terri Underground Rock Laboratory (Switzerland), which joined the existing gallery Ga04 in 2008, the end-face of gallery Ga04 was instrumented in 2007 to characterize the evolution of the rock mass with geochemical and geophysical methods. The noble gas content of a 12-m long horizontal bore...

The purpose of this work is to study the diffusion properties in an argillaceous formation and how these properties change after the excavation of galleries, over a long period. The Tournemire Underground Research Laboratory (URL) located in Aveyron (France) offers the unique opportunity to investigate different stages of the evolution of the so-ca...

A vertical distribution of helium-4 was obtained in pore-water from the Toarcian/Domerian argillaceous formation at Tournemire (South Aveyron, France). Most of the studied core samples were collected from two vertical air-drilled boreholes across the impervious argillaceous formation and penetrating the bounding aquifers. Accessible porosities for...

Krypton-81 is produced by nuclear reactions induced by cosmic rays in atmosphere while Krypton-85 is released from nuclear installations. With respective halflifes of 229 ky and 10.76 y, these isotopes are considered as ideal tracers for dating groundwater or ice core [1-6]. The measurement of 81Kr from a groundwater sample was first demonstrated u...

Groundwaters from the Tithonian/Kimmeridgian, Oxfordian and Upper Dogger aquifers, within the eastern part of the Paris basin (France), were characterised using 3H, 14C and 36Cl, and noble gases tracers, to evaluate their residence times and determine their recharge period. This information is an important prerequisite to evaluating the confinement...

The sorption of technetium by powdered and polished mineral stibnite Sb2S3 has been investigated in simulated and natural underground waters from the Meuse/Haute-Marne region (France). The sorption by powdered stibnite has been found to be complete under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions in batch experiments. The sorption rate is higher in the...

The spatial and temporal changes of the pore water along an argillaceous formation were studied on the basis of the chemistries of the fluids collected through the system. The study is based on chemical characterisation results of the pore water, which requires careful sampling and 4 years monitoring. The concept was applied to the water sampled fr...

The western Atlantic continental margin of the Bay of Biscay is characterised by a combined macro-tidal and a high energy environment. These conditions are responsible for the essentially sandy sedimentary cover along with well-defined fine deposit zones observed on the shelf. The main continental sources are the Loire, Gironde and Adour Rivers. It...

A factorial optimization of data acquisition factors was performed to minimize non-random instrumental noise on an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Results have identified instrumental and analytical operating conditions under which lead isotope ratios can be measured precisely and accurately in natural samples. Precision was checked p...

The distribution of heavy metal was analyzed in water column particles collected in autumn (October 1985) and spring (March 1986) by two series of sediment traps from a mooring located in the northeastern Mediterranean Sea continental slope. Four traps were set, at 50, 100, 300, 600 m depths on the mooring in 645 m deep water in the Lacaze-Duthier...

The progressive phasing-out of lead from gasoline has resulted in a significant decrease in the global atmospheric lead burden over the last 20 years. Here we show that in Europe this change in lead concentration-determined by the analysis of aerosols-is accompanied by a systematic change in lead isotopic compositions and that there was a significa...