Chapter’ Geological Masses 3. Mass Fabric ‘The word 'mass’is already defined in Chap. 1 as the volume of ground that will be in- fluenced by or will influence the engineering work’. All rock and many soil masses have discontinuities and their presence inthe rock or soil mass is of the utmost importance to all engineering works in rock or soil. Much research has been undertaken into the characteristics and behaviour of discontinuities. Whole conferences, such as that on. “Rock Joints’ held in 1990 (Barton and Stephenson 1990) have examined the subject in great detail, However, there is a major gap between acquiring such knovledge by re- search and the application of that knowledge to practice. The problem: is thatthe in- vestigator must forecast the character ofthe discontinuities in the mass, and thence their likely behaviour, from the evidence available from outcrops or boreholes. Adequate data is seldom available Baa Discontinuities ‘The properties of discontinuities of greatest importance to a volume of ground are: shear strength, influencing, for example, the stability of slopes, underground excavations, and foundations, and stiffness, influencing the deformation and permeability ofthe ground. Types of Discontinuities Discontinuities must be classified in relation to theis type. Two basic types of diseon- tinuities may be distinguished. (1) Integral discontinuities ~ which are discontinuities that have yet to be opened by movement or weathering; they have tensile strength and, hence, true cohesion, Intact bedding planes, foliation planes, and strongly cemented, joints are integral discontinuities, (2) Mechanical discontinuities - discontinuities which have been opened as a response to stress or weathering; they have litle or no tensile strength but do generate shear strength. They may be divided into: + Bedding, schistosity or foliation planes ~ these are formed by changes of material or ‘mineral arrangement in the rock Joints - which result from strains of tectonic or diagenetic origin and often fll into well-defined sets whose members are oriented essentially parallel to each other.6 Masses + ractures ~ which result from strain due to man-made stresses (blasting etc.) or geomorphological strains (land siding, creep etc.). They do not necessarily fall into well-defined sets * Faults and shears ~ which result from tectonic, geomorphological and man-made strains, with shear movement on either side of a shear surface. Bedding, schistosity and foliation planes, joints and fractures are normally a egu- lar occurring feature in the mass at approximately regular distances, wth similar ori- ‘entation, and with more or less similar characteristics (Fig. 3.1), These are normally ‘grouped in a “set” or family, eg, bedding plane family and joint set, ete, Both faults and shears may fall into well-defined sets but may occur on a scale greater than that ‘of most engineering works. 3a2 Shear Strength ‘The main concern regarding discontinuities in engineering geology is their resistance to shear stress. Ths is described by Coulomb's law, which is: ret oglang where t= shear strength (N m7), ¢= cohesion (Nm ing plane, and g = angle of siding resistance. ‘The cohesion may be caused by'true cohesion’, eg. theres tensile strength between the two discontinuity surfaces, or may be'apparent cohesion’ caused by irregularities Fig 2.1. Bedding planes as mechanical discontinuity planes causing failure ofa slope in limestone3.1 Mass Fabrle 6 along the discontinuity surfaces. The surfaces of mechanical discontinuities may be smooth and planar or exhibit varying degzees of roughness. For a particular rock the greater the roughness ofthe surface the greater the resistance ofthe discontinuity to shearing. If aormal stresses are relatively low then shear movement along a rough surfaced discontinuity must be accompanied by vertical dilation (Fig. 3.2). Patton (1966) analyse the situation by proposing tht the angle of shearing resistance ofa surface containing speriies inclined at angle iis, the basic ition angle, plus i, so that the shear strength of the discontinuity with asperities i: T= o,tan(+i) G2) One way to determine ¢, isto use a shearbox test in which vertical and horizontal Me on Lik "naga oP cp "et A fase gee Wavelength (rm) be brought about by folding and it reste with the judgement of the observer to decide whether such dip variations may be considered as large scale roughness or to mark domain limits for geotechnical units. It must be remembered that profiles are two- ‘dimensional while roughness is a three dimensional property. On the scale of grain size, this may not be important except in the cate of the lineation features known as slickensides (Fig. 3.5); in the direction of lineation these are smooth but, normal to it, they are rough. At larger scales features such as ripple marks may be similarly dis tinctly anisotropic.3.1 Mass Fabrle o Fig 35.Roughness dependent A fon direction for slckensided icacee Fitting versus Non-Fitting Roughness Figure 3.2 showe a regular saw tooth profile as roughness profile. In realty, roughness profiles of discontinuities are not so regular and are three-dimensional. In general, ‘only one perfect matching fit exists between the walls of the discontinuities. If the walls are displaced relative to each other, the fit will become less. Ifthe displace ‘ment is large enough the roughness profiles hecome completely non-ftting. The ef fect on shear strength is that the contribution of the roughness angle i gradually 1000 ‘equate assessment can be made with the tit test. Two pieces of rock including the dis- continuity are tilted while the angle of the discontinuity with the horizontal is mea- sured (Fig. 3.8) with, for example, the inclinometer included in a geological compass. ‘The angle measured at the moment the top block moves is the'tlt-angle’ If no infillis, present and the two blocks had fitting discontinuity surfaces, the tilt angle equals the small-scale roughness angle plus the angle of friction of the surface material. Ifthe discontinuity roughness is completely non-fitting, the tilt-angle equals the mate- rial friction only. Undisturbed infill material will seldom be present in this test, but if i is, the till-angle includes the influence of the undisturbed infill. If itis not possible to obtain a sample with undisturbed infill material, itis sometimes pot- sible to scrape infill material from another still in situ discontinuity and place this between the blocks of the tilt test sample, The thickness of the so-formed infill layer should be the same as in situ, The measured tlt-angle is then including the influence of remoulded infill material. Cohesion is not measured inthe tlt test sepa- rately. If present, either real or apparent, it will be included in the tilt-angle. Steps on 20 rin strike direction, where tis bank thickness, and in Fig. 3.11b the persistence of y could be given as % to 144 rin strike direction,n Fig 39.Large scale roughness roles (ater Hack and Price 1955). Fig. 3.10. Small sae soughneet profes (alter Hack and Price 1995). a4 Orientation Carn - Geological Masses ‘Amalitude roughness ey saem i= 1420 al Signy way -5960 noe i468 ~ curve Signy euved jane ots 35am Stroh 7 (anges nd mensions ony approximate] ‘Amplitude roughnes:> 2-3 mm sepped Im t incutsing Amplitude roughness >2-3 mm — + |] t Pinar 020m (dimensions only approximate) ‘The importance of discontinuities in any particular project depends partly on their orientation relative to directions of imposed stresses, The geologist records the orientation of discontinuities (which may be geological surfaces such as bed- ding planes giving an indication of geological structure) using a geological com- pats/clinometer usually placed on the surface being measured at some readily ac- ccessible outcrop. In the much more detailed surface mapping required for engi- neering geological purposes dip and strike measurements of discontinuities have3.1 Mass Fabrle a Table 22. Terme forthe de scription of one-dimensional HSE (Mumarical vase ro) rience (ee BSENISO ey eo - low 13 Medium 3-10 High 10-20 Very high >20 Fig. 3:11. Persistence S=sanatone Sree to be taken regardless of whether they are easy to reach or not. For work in nels, the compass/clinometer must have built-in illumination. Clinometers should hhave the capacity to tight-in the inclination of a discontinuity that cannot be reached for a contact measurement, say, for example in a tunnel roof. Discontinw- ity orientation may also be measured from terrestrial stereo-photographs or la- ser scans (Slob et al. 2002), ‘There are various ways of expressing orientation, For engineering geological pur- poses, the best way isto record fully dip and strike data, eaving no possibility for ‘isinterpretation of the record. Check the method you propose to use with another person ~ do they understand it!™ Carn - Geological Masses Fig. 3.12. Banks and beds edding planes opened Syweathenng Otginat ground xcavated slope 345 Spacing is quite clear that in describing a ground mass mention must be made of the spac- ing of discontinuities, eg. the perpendicular distance between two discontinuities from the same tet. This epacing is relevant to probleme of slope stability, tunnel, stability, excavation, groundwater flow and foundation bearing capacity. The termi- nology, which is standard for the description of discontinuity spacing, is given in ‘Table 3.4. However, the use of this terminology does pose some problems when ap- plied to bedded rocks. Assume the rock slope ilustrated in Fig. 3.12 is in sandstone. ‘The upper part ofthe slope is old, the lower part newly excavated, but because some, mostly higher, bedding planes have been opened by weathering and some assem Dlies of beds are separated by thin shaley units, the spacing of the bedding planes docs not reflect the thickness of the geotechnical layers which would be of significance3.1 Mass Fabrle 8 Table 34, Terminology for bedding snd discontinuity spacing (after BS EN 1S0 146891) Integral discontinuities Spacing ‘Mechanica discontinuities Very thik bedded > 6m Bavemely widely spaced Very thickly bedded 2 = 6m Very widely spaced Thick bedded 05 - 2m Widely spacee Medium bedsed 02 - 06m Meciu spaced “hin bees 0mm 02m lose spaced Very thinly bee 20 50mm Very close spaces Thick listed 6 20mm fatremely close spaced “hin laminated < 5mm aremely close spaced Note For metamorphic rocks ‘bedded! bacomesYolatedthihy laminated becomes ‘los oad ad thinly laminated becomes wry closely folate! Accotdng to ths standard beading Unter ds 5) 5 deserbee using the numbers 2 ane 63;¢9, Thc laminate, $320 mm, ane 50 9n.8 pracical compromises shown here Table 35, Rock block dimen. ons and description (afer 8s ESR Maximum dimension ENTSO 189-2) es a Lage 06- 2m Mediu 02- 06m Smal 69. = 200mm ery smal < sonm Second term Shape of block Blocly orcubic Equndimensonal ‘bub ‘Thickness much ess than length or width columnar Height much greater than cos section in, say, slope stability. To overcome this problem a further descriptive terms is needed. The author suggests the use of the term ‘bank to indicate a layer of geotech- nical significance. Thus the sandstone in zone A in the slope would be described as ‘thinly banked thinly bedded’ while that in zone B would be ‘thickly banked me- dium bedded! ‘The shape and size of rock blocks depends upon the spacing ofthe discontinuities bounding them, The terminology proposed by British Standards (1999) is given in ‘Table 3.5 and is designed to indicate the size of rock blocks that may come out of a {quarry of be encountered in a tunnel.6 Carn - Geological Masses 32 Weathering ‘Most civil engineering works occur close to the surface and the process of ‘weather ing’ has affected most groundmasses at challow depth, Because of this, weathering of both engineering soils and rocks is one of the most important problems with which the engineering geologisthas to contend. Weathering implies decay and change in slate from an original condition to a new condition as a result of external pro- ‘cesses. A review of weathering processes has been given by various authors (Anon 1995; Price 1995), ‘A most obvious sign of weathering is brown staining by the oxidation of iron bear- ing minerals. While solution is an agency involved in most forms of chemical weath- ‘ering, itis most prominent in limestones and rocks containing halite and gypsum. In limestones, such as chalk and calearenites, neat vertical solution pipes may form, ‘extending from the limestone/overburden surface to depths of perhaps as much as 40m. These are usually wholly but sometimes partially infill by overburden depos- its which have flowed or been washed in from above. Crystalline limestones are of- ten strong enough to support the development of underground cavern systems through which rivers may flow. The limestones closely adjacent to such systems ‘may be entirely unaffected by the solution weathering and be as strong as the fresh material, ‘Weathering takes place in all environments but is most intense in hot, wet climates where weathering may be expected to extend to great depths. While weathering may reach great depths in limestones, and rocks containing halite and gypsum, itis slow :0 do so and the style of weathering may change if climatic conditions change. In the northern hemisphere, where large areas have been eubjected to phases of glaciation with intervening warmer periods the weathered nature of the groundmass as pres- cently seen may reflect these changes. Thus, in the most recently glaciated areas all. ‘weathered materials may have been carved away by ice and almost fresh rock exposed. Beyond the boundaries of glaciation, weathering may reflect periglacial conditions (Higginbottom and Fookes 1971). It is generally thought that, at the end of the last slaciation, sea level rose by about 100 m. This implies that in seas less than 100 m deep, sea bed materials have been exposed to sub-aerial weathering fora substantial period of time and their properties may reflect this. Indeed, if at any time in geological his- tory, any material has been exposed above surface, it would have been subject to weath- ‘ering. Thus in Western Australia, some of the laterites exposed (and perhaps covered bby more recent deposits) are thought to be of Tertiary age (Geological Survey of West ‘Australia 1974), 324 Influence of Weathering on Rock Mass Properties ‘Weathering weakens rocks. Table 3.6 shows how rock material and rock mass proper~ ties can change with weathering. The table in which the weathering is given by grades (I= fresh to VI~ residual soil) shows the considerable dflerence in mate- rial properties that are a consequence of weathering. An ordinary geological map show ing the granodiorite or the dolerite in the table would not give any indication of the