Mastering the subsurface has been central to the Los Alamos mission for over 60 years, first for containment and monitoring of our own underground testing, and more recently to monitor and assess seismic events for treaty verification. The Laboratory has unique monitoring and diagnostic tools, predictive models of rock behavior, and simulators that can predict the complex couplings between fluid flow, chemical reactions, and mechanical deformation.

Today, Los Alamos leverages these capabilities to support sustainable unconventional fossil resource extraction, carbon management, subsurface environment remediation and management, and geothermal energy. The Laboratory is also developing high performance computing tools and fundamental science to understand what limits oil and gas production and how the subsurface can be manipulated for more efficient and effective recovery of resources.

Research Areas

Developing and applying models to predict flow and transport of multi-phase fluids in subsurface porous and fractured media
Improving geothermal and oil/gas extraction
Infrastructure-pipeline modeling, optimization, (orphan) oil and gas well detection and remediation
Environmental project management, remediation and restoration
Radionuclide geochemistry, mineral physics and engineering
Underground hydrogen storage
Carbon capture, transport, and storage
Researching chemical interactions with time, the environment, and movement through soil, rock, and water/fluids

Key Capabilities

AI and machine learning methods and analytics
High performance and supercomputing
Advanced seismic imaging and interpretation
Nonlinear acoustics, signal modeling and analysis
Subsurface fluid flow and geochemistry characterization
Open-source tool sets for science-informed decision making

Consortia

Los Alamos collaborates with industry, academia, and other national laboratories on developing innovative subsurface energy technologies through the following consortia and initiatives:

Subsurface Energy

Subsurface Energy