business matters
October/November 2021 business edge
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What Lies Beneath Southern Testing are currently involved in an interesting job which required a great deal of technical expertise. Andrew Holley MSc FGS Senior Geological Engineer, Southern Testing Laboratories
A significant ground collapse occurred in October 2020 beneath two potable water reservoirs in Maidstone, Kent. The collapsed ground caused significant damage to the reservoir structures, which resulted in the loss of a valuable water supply asset. Works are ongoing to improve both the ground beneath the reservoir and repair the structures. The ground collapse is believed to be associated with a natural geological hazard, and such collapses are not uncommon in the Barming Heath region of Maidstone. However, the collapse that occurred was unprecedented in its magnitude. The specific cause of the collapsed ground was very likely due to broad vertical fractures or ‘Gulls’ in the underlying bedrock, which are often filled with wind-blown Aeolian deposits
(usually silt/fine sands), or which may contain soil that originates from the overlying geology. The infill soils are liable to collapse if they become inundated with water. These Gull features were formed by a geological process called cambering that probably occurred during ice age periods, at which time the South of England was experiencing a periglacial climate. Cambering may have developed when valley erosion occurred in clay strata which is capped by a brittle Limestone rock in this part of Kent. This erosion caused this overlying rock to fracture, due to stress relief, and then migrate towards the valley centre causing the fractures and Gulls. As the site is of great strategic importance to the local population, it was necessary for the team of consultants and contractors to work closely in order to provide the right solution to enable one of the reservoir structures to be repaired and put back into service quickly. This included thorough investigations of the underlying geology to help develop a ground model, which was undertaken by Southern Testing, and involved Dynamic probing within the reservoir structures themselves.
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