More Geotechnical Excitement in TN

[vulcanhammer]

Having just repaired two rock slides (I-40 and US 64) which cut TN and NC off from each other, we've got excitement from below around here:

http://news.tennesseeanytime.org/node/5174

http://www.pz27.net

 

[dgillette]

Karst in that area? I know there is some in eastern TN, but not specifics.

 

[jheidt2543]

My wife and I left the Gaylord Opryland Resort on Saturday, May 1, the day the rain started. If we had stayed one more night we would have had to swim home, our car would have been under 6' of water. What a mess and so many beautiful homes and buildings ruined, not to mention all the misery for the residents.

 

[JAE]

jheidt2543 - we were there about two weeks before as well..stayed in the Cascades area - just next to the elevators off the waterfall...seems weird to see the rotating bar chairs we sat in floating in water...and Jack Daniels Saloon under as well.

 

[vulcanhammer]

East TN has a great deal of Karst topography. I spend some time in my Soil Mechanics classes explaining it to my students.

And Nashville of course has gone through a long agony with the floods.

http://www.pz27.net

 

[Mccoy]

Do you guys know exactly what kind of rock is that in the sinkhole?

The picture shows something reddish, not very similar to carbonatic rocks, where usually karst phenomena occur.

I showed it to some Italian geologists and everyone of them is discussing about the rock and where the limestone actually is! Just below? very much below? A reddish limestone? Some other soluble rocks?

 

[vulcanhammer]

Some information about that is here:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/wri/wri974097/text/karst.html

This sinkhole took place in the Highland Rim region, at the base of the Cumberland Plateau.

http://www.pz27.net

 

[dgillette]

Maybe the red color is the overlying siliclastic rock. I never saw that word before I looked at vulcanhammer's link, but it is perfectly self-explanatory. I'll now be looking for a chance to use it.

In the Grand Canyon, there is a formation called the Redwall Limestone, because it forms <drum roll> red walls. However, the material is not red itself. The color comes from iron oxide leached from the overlying rocks, which are likely siliclastic.

http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/gc_layer.htm#rl

 

[BigH]

David - one of my favourite words to use (and we could in Canada) was "paludal".

 

[fattdad]

Call me "old school," but I don't like the use of the word "karst" for every occurance of solution features in carbonate rocks. Back in the dark ages, "karst" was a geomorphic term that described a topographic trend where the geography shows repeated depressions on an areal scale. Not a sinkhole here and a sinkhole there! Heck, now the word is used everytime somebody sees a void in their drill hole!

Regarding the word, "siliclastic" - never heard of it (not that I've heard of everything that is). I'm just making up the definition as sili refers to silicate and clastic refers to rock fragments. I didn't read vulcanhammer's link, but don't quite know how a carbonate would be considered "siliclastic."

Regarding red clay on top of limestone (carbonate rocks), we see this all the time in Virginia. In many instances the residuum over the limestone is quite red and classifies as lean clay/elastic silt, where stiff and fat clay/elastic silt where soft. Quite typical is to observe in boreholes an "enhanced weathered zone" above the throat of a carbonate void (cave?). N-values in the low single digits.

I mostly wrote to challenge the use of the word "karst" for everything carbonate and everything with solution features. My geology professor (Colorado State University) told me there is no "karst" in the United States, except from some place in the mid-west. Its typical section is in Germany, but China has some dramatic examples.

Google images if you are interested in karst (well the topogrpahic term). It ain't a few farm ponds underlain by limestone.

Rant over.

f-d, c.p.g., p.e.

p.s., nice work v/h!

¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

 

[dgillette]

It's not the carbonates that are siliclastic - it's the overlying material that is referred to in vulcanhammer's link.

No karst in central FL? Use Google Earth to fly over the the middle of the peninsula going south from I4 to Lake Okeechobee. Many many lakes, ponds, and cypress domes at former sinkholes - how many does it take to qualify as "karst"? A couple years ago, Scott Lake south of Lakeland was drained nearly dry by a sinkhole. You can still see all the docks left high and dry.

We once pushed a rod (bullprick) 260 feet in one of those sinkholes full of peat and clay, using a little CME 35 crawler - soft stuff. We built a temporary surcharge over it for a rather small highway embankment.

 

[fattdad]

Yeah, I'll give you certain parts of Florida and maybe like Missouri. I just have a hard time calling "Karst" in Virginia, Pennsylvania and those places where, sure there are sinkholes, but the presence of the sinkholes doesn't define the areal topography, just an incident here or an incident there.

I think folks just like the word, personally. . .

f-d

¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

 

[Mccoy]

Thanks for the very interesting references.

By the way, siliclastic is pretty much used in Italy as well, we just add an 'o' in the middle and another at the end like in 'silicoclastico'.

Geologists' jargon.

 

[BigH]

Alright David - you know a CME 35!! Ever use a Boyles BBS1? I've done with both. The CME 55 was a bit more robust though. Had some "karst" terrain at a site in East Java - Pacitan; I'll post some pictures later. At a Coal Fired Plant.

 

[Mccoy]

you guys sure are already aware that the mother of the sinkhole below the Tennessee Interstate is dwelling in central America :

Besides the sheer monstruosity of it, the regularity of the cylindrical-ellyptical shape is sure impressing.

Still heard no satisfactory explanations for it.

The well-known blu holes bear the same pattern, on a scale even larger:

 

[jheidt2543]

Blue holes? I've heard of the Blue Man Group, I hate to ask if there is a connection...

 

[Mccoy]

Blue holes? I've heard of the Blue Man Group, I hate to ask if there is a connection...

well, they would pretty much fit into one of them holes I reckon

P.S.: I realized one minute ago the Guatemala sinkholes were posted in the geological engineering section, sorry for that