Soil Quality and Soil Liquefaction
Soil quality typically refers to three characteristics of a soil; the chemical, physical and biological properties. When used as an agricultural term, soil quality is often a measure of the soils ability to produce crops over the long term. However, because the chemical and physical properties of soils are of interest to engineers as well, soil quality is often a term used to describe soil properties of interest to designers, engineers and constructors. The soil quality parameters of most interest are the chemical properties and physical properties. We have featured a closer look into some of the other chemical properties of soils in previous posts, including the ability of soils to conduct electricity, and what this can tell us about types of soil contaminants that might be present. Here, we’re going to delve more deeply into physical soil quality, and one property of certain soils that can be fascinating, but also tragically dangerous. That property is the propensity of certain soil types, under certain conditions to exhibit liquefaction. Liquefaction and Soil Quality Liquefaction, as the name implies, is the term used to describe soil that behaves like a liquid. As you can see from the image above, this can lead to catastrophic outcomes. If the people constructing this building had a better understanding of the impact of soil quality on the stability of the structure, they might have had the opportunity to mitigate the potential damage. So clearly, the susceptibility of a soil to liquefaction is an important indicator of the soil's quality. But what is soil liquefaction? Well, as we noted above, liquefaction is when soil acts like a liquid, but how can this happen? Soil liquefaction most often occurs in loose, sandy soil types where the soil itself is mostly, or completely saturated with water. When this type [...]