Lecture 3 (Soil Facies)

• Soil facies: distinct soil unit, distinguishable, forms under specific process, reflects particular
process or environment.
• Two types of soils:
o Residual
§ Saprolite: decomposed rock (weathering), unglaciated, tectonically stable
§ Laterite (ferricrete): Fe-Al rich (rusty), downward mineral leaching, problems
à poor drainage, hardly excavated, swelling clays
§ Calcrete (caliche/hardpan/duricrust): Ca rich, upward mineral leaching,
problems à poor drainage, hardly excavated
§ Organic: classified to amorphous, fine fibrous, coarse fibrous. High
compressibility, low density, fairly high permeability, friction angle 30-35
o Transported
§ Fluvial (alluvial): gravely channel deposits, fines from overbank, buried
organics. Heterogeneous (permeability, compressibility, shear strength)
§ Deltaic
§ Lacustrine: laminated clay-silt, clay strength and compressibility a function of
depth.
§ Marine – Submarine: salt in pore water can play an important role
§ Littoral: uniform-rounded grains, loose-compact, thin discontinued deposits.
§ Aeolian: loess (fine sand, loose, cemented, unsaturated, erodible, collapsive)
and sand dunes (fine, uniform, rounded, loose)
§ Glacial:
• Till:
o Basal (lodgement) till: dense, faintly bedded, oriented grains,
sharp contacts, possible sheared.
o Ablation till: loose to compact, structureless, irregular contact,
ridged topography, fluvial/lacustrine inclusion.
o Flow till: looks like debris flow
• Glaciofluvial/outwash: sand gravel, dense to very dense, perched water
tables, erodible, minimum organics.
• Glaciolacustrine: varves, dropstones, apparent cohesion, similar
behavior to loess. Saturation my cause loss of apparent cohesion.
• Glaciomarine: sensitive/quick-clay, cardhouse structure, leached zones
§ Colluvial: loose, perched water, often unsaturated, bound by root system,
talus. For instance, debris flow, landslide
§ Anthropogenic: human-made
• Geotechnical and Geological Complexity:
Morgenstern and Cruden, 1987 stated that geotechnical complexities arise from three classes of
material forming process.
1. Genetic process

The formation process of material creates the original properties and features of material.
Its identification relies on geological mapping and interpretation. For example, a
 deposition process results in interbedded layer of volcanic sand and silt in pyroclastic
deposit.
2. Epigenetic process
This process come subsequently after material formation includes deformation and
diagenetic process. For example, tectonic process results in heavily jointed rocks and
cementation by calcite during lithification process.
3. Weathering
This process usually occurs when the material exposed to air and water. It modifies prior
geotechnical properties created by genetic and epigenetic processes. It could simplify or
add complexity; for instance, heavily weathered diorite and granite may produce simply
similar geotechnical properties.
Each process can subsequently be utilized to create facies (domains) and the created facies can be
overlapped each other to assist sampling decision, geotechnical characterization, and other
further analysis.