J K,W, Eurth Sci., \·01.6.",,47·77 ( 14 13 A.II. /1 993 A .I) .

Ground Conditions in Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah,

Saudi Arabia

MOHAMMAD IBRAHIM MATSAH* and D ELWAR HOSSAIN H

., Department of Structural Geology and Remote Sensing,
"<Departm ent of Engineering Geology, Faculty of Earth Sciences,
King A bdu laziz Universit y , Ieddah , Saudi Arabia

AUSTRA C1. Th e Saudi A ra bian City o f A I-M adina h is situ ated in a depos-
itional basin surround ed by lava plateau s and hills within th e western pari o f
the A rabian Shield. Within a maximum depth of 45 rn, the sub-soil in AI-
Madin ah con sists o f nine soil typ es (on e "fill" , six natural co hes ive and two
co hesio nle ss) a nd three rock typ es. Th e co he sive soi ls var y from highl y
compre ssible or ganic cla y and soft co mp ress ible/s welling grey-green clay 10
hard clay whil e th e co hesionless soil s are of medium to ver y den se relative
den sity. Th e rock s vary from weak limest on e to massive gabbrow, Th e " fill"
a nd so me of the o ther so ils occur at the top while th e rocks occ u r either a t
depth or as isolated hilly out crop s .
Po or o r pro blcrn utic gr ound co nditio ns arc en count ered down to a
maximum depth of 15 m in some areas to th e so uth . east and north-ea st of
th e Prophet's Mosque du e to th e pres en ce o f weak soils with high compres-
sibility and/or swell poten tial.
Pr ot ective mea sur es for foundati on con crete and reinfor cement are
nece ssar y due to agg ressive gro und conditions. Ground water co nt ro l mea-
sur es a re generall y not required for usu al co nstructio ns .

l. Introduction
The holy city of AI-Madinah AI-Munawarah is located in Western Saudi Arabia. The
recent oil-boom initiated a large volume of development work in it. The site investi-
gation reports of some of the recent major projects of AI-Mad inah like the large-scale
expansion of the Prophet's Holy Mosque and The Ring Roads contain a large volume
of geotechn ical data about the AI-M adinah sub- soil which has little be en studied ex-
cept for Erol et al. (1981) , Dhowian et al. (1990) (on the swelling potential of two AI-
Madinah clays) , Sabbagh and Abuzaid (1991) (on reduction of swelling pressure of a

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