ABSTRACT:The legacy inherited from anthropogenic processes needs to be addressed in order to provide reliable and up-to-date ground information relevant to the urban environment. The legacy includes holes as well as materials. Their characteristics derive from former quarrying and mining activities, industrial processes creating derelict ground, variably consolidated made ground, and contaminated groundwater and soils. All need to be systematically assessed to inform the planning process and provide the basis for engineering solutions. Site-specific investigation needs to be conducted on the back of good quality geoscientific data. This comes from 'field' survey, remotely sensed data interpretation, soil geochemical sampling, and geotechnical investigation. Three-dimensional characterization of superficial deposits is required to reach an understanding of the potential spatial lithological variability of artificial ground and the geometry of importance surfaces, i.e. the boundary conditions.
Mineralogical and petrographical investigation of two loessic brickearth profiles from Ospringe and Pegwell Bay in north Kent, UK have differentiated two types of brickearth fabric that can be correlated with different engineering behaviour. Both sequences comprise metastable (collapsing) calcareous brickearth, overlain by noncollapsing 'non-calcareous' brickearth. This study has demonstrated that the two types of brickearth are discretely different sedimentary units, with different primary sedimentary characteristics and an erosional junction between the two units. A palaeosol is developed on the calcareous brickearth, and is associated with the formation of rhizolithic calcrete indicating an arid or semi-arid environment. No evidence has been found for decalcification being responsible for the fabric of the upper 'non-calcareous' brickearth. Optically-stimulated dates lend further
2007. New OSL dating of UK loess: indications of two phases of Late Glacial dust accretion in SE England and climate implications.ABSTRACT: Windblown dust deposits or loess, locally known in the UK as brickearth, blanket many parts of southern England outside the limits of the British and Irish Ice Sheet. The best-studied loess exposures occur in Kent, southeast England, where the deposits are believed to be Late Glacial in age. New sedimentological evidence is presented for phases of accretion with two distinct units, a calcareous brickearth exhibiting periglacial cryoturbation and a non-calcareous, massive brickearth. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating has been applied to chemically isolated modal quartz silts to derive a chronology for sediment accretion and to better understand the palaeoclimatic significance of these deposits. # British
An important part of many site investigations is the geomechanical assessment of the rock mass in terms of a classification system which is independent of the user. All classification systems used to date are based on observation of the rock mass and the determination of simple engineering parameters on intact rock specimens. In this paper, the use of the seismic properties of the rock mass to assess the geomechanical performance of the rock mass are examined and illustrated by three case histories. It is shown that precise values of uniaxial compressive strength cannot be predicted from compressional wave velocity determinations, although rock types can be classified qualitatively (for example, weak to very weak or strong to very strong). For a specific lithology, the compressional wave velocity can be related to the degree of fracturing and an approximate relationship with RQD established.
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