The Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) Project is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary research and development (R&D) project with the primary goal of ensuring and enhancing the reliability of relevant geological disposal technologies through practical application to the geological environment within the host sedimentary rocks. In the project, we have been tackling a wide range of issues of importance to both the geological disposal project and the associated safety regulations in three, partially overlapping, phases extending over two decades:

Phase I: surface-based investigation (March 2001 - March 2006);
Phase II: construction (investigation during tunnel excavation) (November 2005 - March 2015); and
Phase III: operation (investigation in subsurface facilities) (July 2010 - March 2029).