Engineering Geology

After the very successful 1st Workshop on Earthquake Archaeology and Paleoseismology held in the ancient roman site of Baelo Claudia (Spain, 2009), the INQUA Focus Group on Paleoseismology and Active Tectonics decided to elaborate a bi-annual calendar to support this joint initiative with the IGCP-567 “Earthquake Archaeology”. This second joint meeting moved to the eastern Mediterranean, a tectonically active setting within the Africa-Eurasia collision zone and located in the origins of the pioneer's works on archaeoseismology. ...

For rockfall simulations, competitive case studies and data sets are important to develop and evaluate the models or software. Especially for empirical or data driven stochastic modelling the quality of the reference data sets has a major impact on model skills and knowledge discovery. Therefore, rockfalls in the Bolonia Bay close to Tarifa (Spain) were mapped. Here, the siliciclastic Miocene rocks (megaturbidites) are intensively joined and disaggregated by a perpendicular joint system. Although bedding supports stability as the dip is not directed ...

Today geology faces new challenges but also great chances brought on by the increased use of digital information. On one hand in the last decade the increase in data volume has been enormous, on the other hand the data sources are still neither homogeneous nor widely distributed. Furthermore often the only available data for a survey were acquired for completely different purposes. Especially when tasks become more complex, the usage of distributed not homogeneous data is essential and leads to considerable problems.

In the last years the number of tunnelling projects in Europe increased considerably. Today the most common technique is mechanical heading with tunnel boring machines (TBM). In the course of tunnelling projects, often unexpected problems are encountered due to adhesion between clays and tool surfaces. Unfortunately, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the chemo-mechanical behaviour of the excavated material. As it is well known, the engineering behaviour of fine-grained soils depends mainly on the clay mineralogy of the soil. In first experiments Atterberg limits and vane shear tests have been performed with pore fluids showing different dielectric constants which were added to standard clays. These experiments were performed to investigate and quantify the impact of the dielectric constant of the fluids on the geotechnical properties of the different clay groups. All tests show that the mechanical behaviour is strongly affected by the dielectric constant of the pore fluids. Additionally, electro-osmotic experiments have been performed to investigate the effect of electric charge on the adhesion behaviour of the clay samples in order to reduce the adherence for a certain clay type. The adhesion behaviour of different clays has been also tested in newly developed cone pull-out tests.

Current research indicates an increasing number of forest fires incidents and burned areas for Europe in the future (e.g. Moriondo et al., 2006). Besides economical and environmental impacts they can cause future "secondary" hazards like landslides, debris flows and flash floods. There are many past and current studies investigating effects of erosion and landslide phenomena like debris flows in burned areas (s. Shakesby & Doerr, 2006). The influence of the geological framework is often neglected in these studies. Furthermore, deep seated landslides and slumps are only hypothetically described (Swanson, 1981). To study the relevance of geology and to observe the processes, areas in Attica and the western Peloponnese in Greece burned by the catastrophic wildfires of 2007 and 2009 were investigated. The Tertiary Flysch units and the Neogene deposits in the Pyrgos area of the western Peloponnese are generally a landslide prone area. The slopes in the area show the typical morphological features of a landslide landscape. This is not only true for the in 2007 burned areas but also for unburned areas even in some kilometre distance. Large rotational slides with 20 m and higher main scarps interact and build up complex staircase landslide cascades. Even so vegetation indicates for the unburned areas currently a low activity. In contrary in the burned areas even 2 years after the fires many recent effects from landslides can be observed, like slope failures, cliff break ups, road failures, destroyed retention walls and cracks in houses. While the shallow landslides show a very high dynamic, also older larger landslides are developing or reactivating. As the changes in landslide activity are limited to the burned areas, it is reasonable that the changes in the hydrological conditions like Swanson (1981) predicted due to the destroyed vegetation are the main trigger mechanism for the new and reactivated landslides. An increased availability of water at the sliding plane and the additional weight of the saturated soils change substantially the limit equilibrium. In general the findings show that the changed environmental conditions due to the fires drastically increased the landslide activity in the area at least locally. In Attica, the affected areas are mostly located in Mesozoic metamorphic units build up from schist and marbles. As the fires stopped only two months before our site visit, the landslide effects are not that explicit and were just beginning to develop. Furthermore, due to the different geology and morphology the areas are not known as typical landslide areas. In the schist areas besides the development of rills and gullies, at several localities shallow soil slip with some 10 m extension could be observed. Anyhow the processes were limited to the weathered cover of the rocks which are much more permeable. On the other hand, in the marble areas only local erosion in the thin soil cover and first activation of debris could be observed. Anyhow, heavy precipitation events lead already to flooding. The results show that the type and extend of landslides which develop after a fire incident are also controlled by geological features like rock types or permeability. Moreover, in an appropriate landslide environment even very large landslides might develop after a forest fires. Moriondo, M. et al. 2006. Potential impact of climate change on fire risk in the Mediterranean area. Climate Res. 31, 85-95. Shakesby, R.A. & Doerr, S.H. 2006. Wildfire as a hydrological and geomorphological agent. Earth Sci. Rev. 74, 269-307. Swanson, F.J., 1981. Fire and geomorphic processes. in: Mooney et al. (Eds.), Fire Regime and Ecosystem Properties, USDA For. Serv. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-26, 401-421.

Monitoring systems in landslide areas are important elements of effective Early Warning structures. Data acquisition and retrieval allows the detection of movement processes and thus is essential to generate warnings in time. Apart from the precise measurement, the reliability of data is fundamental, because outliers can trigger false alarms and leads to the loss of acceptance of such systems. For the monitoring of mass movements and their risk it is important to know, if there is movement, how fast it is and how trustworthy is the information. The joint project "Sensorbased landslide early warning system" (SLEWS) deals with these questions, and tries to improve data quality and to reduce false alarm rates, due to the combination of sensor date (sensor fusion). The project concentrates on the development of a prototypic Alarm-and Early Warning system (EWS) for different types of landslides by using various low-cost sensors, integrated in a wireless sensor network (WSN). The network consists of numerous connection points (nodes) that transfer data directly or over other nodes (Multi-Hop) in real-time to a data collection point (gateway). From there all the data packages are transmitted to a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for further processing, analyzing and visualizing with respect to end-user specifications. The ad-hoc characteristic of the network allows the autonomous crosslinking of the nodes according to existing connections and communication strength. Due to the independent finding of new or more stable connections (self healing) a breakdown of the whole system is avoided. The bidirectional data stream enables the receiving of data from the network but also allows the transfer of commands and pointed requests into the WSN. For the detection of surface deformations in landslide areas small low-cost Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) and positionsensors from the automobile industries, different industrial applications and from other measurement technologies were chosen. The MEMS-Sensors are acceleration-, tilt-and barometric pressure sensors. The positionsensors are draw wire and linear displacement transducers. In first laboratory tests the accuracy and resolution were investigated. The tests showed good results for all sensors. For example tilt-movements can be monitored with an accuracy of +/-0,06°and a resolution of 0,1°. With the displacement transducer change in length of >0,1mm is possible. Apart from laboratory tests, field tests in South France and Germany were done to prove data stability and movement detection under real conditions. The results obtained were very satisfying, too. In the next step the combination of numerous sensors (sensor fusion) of the same type (redundancy) or different types (complementary) was researched. Different experiments showed that there is a high concordance between identical sensor-types. According to different sensor parameters (sensitivity, accuracy, resolution) some sensor-types can identify changes earlier. Taking this into consideration, good correlations between different kinds of sensors were achieved, too. Thus the experiments showed that combination of sensors is possible and this could improve the detection of movement and movement rate but also outliers. Based on this results various algorithms were setup that include different statistical methods (outlier tests, testing of hypotheses) and procedures from decision theories (Hurwicz-criteria). These calculation formulas will be implemented in the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for the further data processing and validation. In comparison with today existing mainly punctually working monitoring systems, the application of wireless sensor networks in combination with low-cost, but precise micro-sensors provides an inexpensive and easy to set up monitoring system also in large areas. The correlation of same but also different sensor-types permits a good data control. Thus the sensor fusion is a promising tool to detect movement more reliable and thus contributes essential to the improvement of Early Warning Systems.

Currently, existing contradictory between remediation and acquisition from natural resource induces a series of divergences. With regard to open pit mining, legal regulation requires human to fill back the open pit area with water or recreate new landscape by ...

Besides precipitation triggered landslides, a major thread from landslides is related to earthquake triggered landslides, which account for the majority of catastrophic landslides. This fact is complicated due to the progressive development of urban areas and infrastructure, the dependency of our society on a functioning infrastructure and an increasing number of endangered objects in the affected areas. Therefore there is a need to improve basic understanding of the technical, financial and social risks posed by earthquakes triggered landslides. Furthermore basic understanding of processes and cascading hazards related to earthquake triggered landslides must be improved. For the past two decades an increasing number of landslide warning systems are developed and applied for general public and industrial purposes. On the other side earthquake triggered landslide warning and monitoring has made very little advances and is still under development. Resent research in the area of sensor network development focus on the application of micro sensors (MEMS) in ad hoc wireless sensor networks operated in an interoperable spatial data infrastructure (SDI) according to the sensor web enablement (SWE) guidelines of the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) for real-time monitoring of landslides like the SLEWS -Sensor based Landslide Early Warning System. The SLEWS sensor nodes provide next to motion detection also a 3D acceleration data to evaluate direction and value of the peak acceleration. This information can be used in an event case both to monitor endangered slopes or critical infrastructures and to initiate warnings to trigger e.g. rail or road blocks. Furthermore the data from the sensor network can be provided in real-time for shake or alert maps via standardized interfaces.

The terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) has been used for the investigation of escarpments (bedrock fault scarps) at different sites in Greece in order to identify the palaeo-slip events and rates. Our approach is based on differential weathering, karstification and bioerosion of the subsequentially exposed limestone free face from repeated earthquake surface faulting events. Data acquisition with the TLS method and the high-resolution spatial surface analysis can help to improve data quality and to provide a more accurate prediction for a plane analysis of the fault bedrock scarps. Scientific objectives are the analysis of rock surface roughness in different scales, orientations and methods, which may help us to determine the relative age of slip. Furthermore, the intensity of the backscattered reflection of the scarp surface can offer us the possibility to identify different weathering stages semi-automatically. The degradation and erosion features of the fault plane can help to reconstruct the plane geomorphology. We applied the LiDAR at limestone fault scarps with clear free faces that have experienced large surface faulting events in the past, such as the Kaparelli Fault or the Sparta Fault in mainland Greece. Some of these scarps have been dated with cosmogenic isotopes. The results of the cosmogenic nuclide dating on scarps give an absolute age of the individual palaeoseismological slip events. This ensures the cross validation of the TLS data. Additionally, geodetic measurements with compass and GPS were carried out to cross-validate the quality of the TLS point cloud data and to georeference.

During mechanical excavation with a tunnel boring machine (TBM) it is possible that clays stick to the cutting wheel and to other metal parts. The resulting delays in the progress of construction work, cause great economic damage and often disputes between the public awarding authorities and executing companies. One of the most important factors to reduce successfully the clay adhesion is the use of special polymers and foams. But why does the clay stick to the metal parts? A first step is to recognize which kind of clay mineralogy shows serious adhesion problems. The mechanical properties of clay and clay suspensions are primarily determined by surface chemistry and charge distribution at the interfaces, which in turn affect the arrangement of the clay structure. As we know, clay is a multi-phase material and its behaviour depends on numerous parameters such as: clay mineralogy, clay fraction, silt fraction, sand fraction, water content, water saturation, Atterberg limits, sticky limit, activity, cation exchange capacity, degree of consolidation and stress state. It is therefore likely that adhesion of clay on steel is also affected by these clay parameters. Samples of clay formations, which caused problems during tunnel driving, will be analyzed in laboratory. Mineralogical analyses (diffractometry, etc.) will be carried out to observe which minerals are responsible for adherence problems. To manipulate the physical properties, batch tests will be carried out in order to eliminate or reduce the adhesion on tool surfaces through variation of the zeta potential.

Emissions CO 2 into the atmosphere have become a serious concern worldwide. Despite efforts to reduce the CO 2 concentration, global CO 2 emissions are increasing, and are estimated to be almost twice the current emissions by 2040 unless mitigating techniques are adopted. Many methods have been introduced to mitigate CO 2 emissions to the atmosphere. One of them is to capture CO 2 from stationary sources and transport, and store it in abandoned coal mines. CO 2 can be stored in abandoned coal mines in three states: free in empty spaces, adsorbed on the remaining coal or dissolved in mine water. The amount of storage could be significant depending on geological characteristics of mines and engineering design parameters. It would also be possible to recover some CH 4 which could offset the cost of the project. A review of the previous studies completed on CO 2 sequestration in abandoned coal mines around the world and preliminary assessments of the potential in Australia are presented.

Lake Ohrid Basin is a graben structure situated in the Dinarides at the border of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Albania. It hosts one of the oldest lakes in Europe and is characterized by a basin and range-like geological setting together with the half-graben basins of Korca, Erseka and Debar. The basin 5 is surrounded by Palaeozoic metamorphics in the northeast and north and Mesozoic ultramafic, carbonatic and magmatic rocks in the east, northwest, west and south. Palaeocene to Pliocene units are present in the southwest. With the basin development, Neogene sediments from Pliocene to recent deposited in the lows. Three major deformation phases lead to the basin formation: A) NW-SE shortening from Late Cre-15 Peninsula. Activity of the youngest faults is evidenced by earthquake data and field observations. Morphotectonic features like a wind-gap, fault scarps, a stepped series of active normal faults, deformed palaeosols, and fault-related hydrothermal activity are preserved around Lake Ohrid and allow delineating the tectonic history. It is shown that the Lake Ohrid Basin can be characterized as a seismogenic landscape. This paper 20 presents a tectonic history of the Lake Ohrid Basin and describes tectonic features that are preserved in the recent landscape. The analysis of morphotectonic features is used to derive the deformation history. The stratigraphy of the area is summarized and concentrates on the main units. 4642 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract BGD 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract BGD 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010 Abstract 7, 4641-4664, 2010

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