Events & Courses

Carbonate Hazard - Mining and Dissolution with Dr. Clive Edmonds.

Start time 17.00 hrs

Carbonate rocks like limestone and chalk present a particular set of engineering geological challenges both to existing development and whenever new development is planned. The advent of national cavity databases assists with the preliminary checks of whether natural or mining cavities are recorded on site or in its vicinity, but it is usually essential to further understand, in more detail, the site location in its wider geomorphological and historical context to truly assess the engineering risks. Many professional indemnity claims are frequently associated with a lack of due diligence of third party data, leading to incorrect assumptions and advice about sites and, in turn, risking unsafe development.
 
For natural cavities it is important to appreciate the range of types, depths and scales at which they can occur. The nature of the carbonate terrain and its geological and geomorphological development is important when creating a ground model for the site and using this to design and execute the ground investigation. The investigation needs to characterise the site sufficiently to provide safe engineering solutions. Similarly, knowledge of past regional factors (industries, styles, scales) that have led to the need for underground mining (often poorly or unrecorded and pre-dating published maps) requires appreciation in order to evaluate the potential for past mining at sites and how to develop safe site development strategies.
 
The training session will concentrate upon (1) guidance for improved methodology for the assessment of sites underlain by carbonate terrains to check their geohazard potential, given that this appears to be a weakness for many geotechnical investigations, (2) consideration for investigation strategies and (3) review possible engineering solutions.

Speaker - Dr. Clive Edmonds

Clive Edmonds has more than 40 years’ experience of working in the geotechnical industry. In his early career years he became interested in ground stability geohazards, especially those upon chalk which became the focus of academic research. The research produced new geomorphology based methods for evaluating carbonate terrains and started the compilation of natural and mining cavity databases which later were extended nationally as part of government sponsored research. Latterly he was a Partner at Peter Brett Associates LLP where he was responsible for leading large numbers of ground stability related projects (new development and insurance claims work) including some funded by the Land Stabilisation Programme at Reading and elsewhere. He also undertakes expert witness cases in connection with ground instability problems which provides useful insight into why ground movement problems sometimes go unrecognised and can result in failing engineered solutions.

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