Mont Terri


Mont Terri is one of the mountains of the Jura Mountains range. It is located south of Cornol in the Canton of Jura. The mountain can be located 140 km west of Zurich.
A prehistoric site, Mont-Terri Castle, is located on the summit.

Research

The mountain is the site of an international research project, the Mont Terri Project, founded in 1996. The facilities consist of the underground conducting research on geological, hydrogeological, geochemical and geotechnical characterisation of Opalinus Clay, which is a type of argillaceous claystone. The research team includes partners from Europe and Japan. The purpose of the study are to discover if this impermeable clay is suitable for geologic disposal of radioactive waste. The project is partially funded by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Primary contacts for the research project are Jens Birkholzer, Chief Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Marc Thury, Chief Geologist at the National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste.