Welcome to the Autumn 2004 edition of Quintessa Update, the electronic newsletter of Quintessa Limited.

Quintessa has developed a probabilistic methodology for making spatial and/or spatio-temporal predictions of geological faulting/fracturing for both regional and local scales. The underlying concept involves modelling spatial patterns of known faulting, and updating these distributions with additional datasets (e.g., geophysical) through the Bayesian paradigm.

Raiden3, Quintessa's fully coupled reaction-transport code, has been verified for problems involving the interaction of hyperalkaline fluids with bentonite by inter-comparison with the published results from an independent code. For a copy of the report, please click here.

Quintessa has developed a generic online database of FEPs for the geological storage of CO₂. Each FEP has a text description and an associated discussion of its relevance to long-term performance and safety. Also, key references from the published literature are included together with hyperlinks to other relevant sources of information (reports, websites, maps, photographs, videos, etc.), and is searchable in a variety of ways. The Quintessa CO₂ FEP database is being promoted by the IEA in the Risk Assessment section of their newly launched CO₂ Capture and storage website, http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/
For more information, please contact Philip Maul.

Quintessa is pleased to announce the opening of a new branch office in the city of Mizunami in Gifu prefecture Japan, close to the deep underground research laboratory that is currently being constructed by the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC).
For more information, please contact Richard Metcalfe.

Quintessa is pleased to welcome:

Hisanori Wakamatsu Hisanori is working on problems relating to geological structure, groundwater flow and mass transfer.	Kazuhiro Yamada Kazuhiro is focusing on applications of nonlinear time series analysis, multi agent simulation, and knowledge engineering.	Sarah Watson Sarah Watson is specialising in groundwater flow modelling and performance assessment.