Geologic Controls of Subdivision Damage near Denver, Colorado
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 131, Issue 9
Abstract
This case study investigates the geologic controls on damaging ground deformations in a residential subdivision near Denver, Colo. Moderate to severe damage has occurred in certain areas where linear, parallel heave features with up to of differential displacement have formed across roads and under houses. Other areas have small, localized depressions that have formed in the roadsides with no discernable damage to nearby houses. Still other areas show no evidence of ground movements. The bedrock beneath the subdivision consists of steeply dipping Cretaceous strata of the Benton Shale, Niobrara Formation, and Pierre Shale. Quaternary soil deposits and fill, thick, overlie the bedrock. The most pronounced and damaging linear-heave features are coincident with steeply dipping, silty claystone with thin layers of very highly plastic bentonite. These heave features diminish as the depth to bedrock increases, and become small to negligible where the bedrock is overlain by or more of overburden soil deposits or fill. In contrast, areas having no visible damage and those having localized surface depressions are typically underlain by of alluvial-terrace deposits or fill. The depressions appear to have been caused by settlement over improperly filled water-and-sewer line trenches. The overall relationship between geology and ground deformations as seen in this subdivision may be useful for predicting, and thereby reducing, damage for future subdivision projects.
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Acknowledgments
The writer wishes to thank Marilyn Dodson for compiling much of the original data from the early geotechnical reports. In addition, thanks go to the large number of students and professional geologists and engineers who shared their time and observations with the writer at this study site during the past decade. This paper is being done in partial fulfillment of the writer’s PhD degree in geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). The Colorado Geological Survey (CGS) and Douglas County funded the original project from which this study was derived. Jerry Higgins and Harold Olsen, CSM, and William Pat Rogers, CGS retired, reviewed early drafts of the manuscript, and three anonymous reviewers edited the manuscript for ASCE.
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© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: May 24, 2004
Accepted: Jan 31, 2005
Published online: Sep 1, 2005
Published in print: Sep 2005
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