Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
03 Jun 1993, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Abstract
An outburst of warm springs together with the development of an extensive area of high pore-water pressures occurred during the first filling of the 50m high earth and rock fill Itezhitezhi Dam on the Kafue River in Zambia. These and other unanticipated events led to extensive geological and hydrogeological investigations that resulted in the implementation of unusual remedial measures. The remedial work was completed before the reservoir reached its full supply level. The dam has since performed successfully. The problems are reviewed in terms of the significance of the site geology. The hydrogeologic problems were found to be caused by the presence of a modified karstic terrane developed on a mineralized, faulted and deeply weathered bedrock of granite and associated rocks. Small differences between the river levels and the piezometric levels in deep porings contributed to a delay in problem identification. The problems encountered and their causes are thought to be without precedent.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
3rd Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1993 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Slichter, F. B.; Peck, R. B.; Patton, F. D.; Jernelius, I.; and Balasubrahmanyam, S., "Geological Surprises at Itezhitezhi Dam, Zambia" (1993). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 6.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/3icchge/3icchge-session08/6
Geological Surprises at Itezhitezhi Dam, Zambia
St. Louis, Missouri
An outburst of warm springs together with the development of an extensive area of high pore-water pressures occurred during the first filling of the 50m high earth and rock fill Itezhitezhi Dam on the Kafue River in Zambia. These and other unanticipated events led to extensive geological and hydrogeological investigations that resulted in the implementation of unusual remedial measures. The remedial work was completed before the reservoir reached its full supply level. The dam has since performed successfully. The problems are reviewed in terms of the significance of the site geology. The hydrogeologic problems were found to be caused by the presence of a modified karstic terrane developed on a mineralized, faulted and deeply weathered bedrock of granite and associated rocks. Small differences between the river levels and the piezometric levels in deep porings contributed to a delay in problem identification. The problems encountered and their causes are thought to be without precedent.
