Alternative Title
Paper No. 8.08
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
11 Mar 1998, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Abstract
Claims for sinkhole damages have increased significantly since the passage of legislation in 1969 requiring Florida insurance companies to provide sinkhole coverage for residential properties. At many sites, there is little surficial evidence of karst activity (i.e. Areas of subsidence and depressions) to provide a direct link between a suspected sinkhole and damage to the structure. Whatever the cause of the damage, sinkhole damage investigations are becoming increasingly important. The karstic terrain and limestone bedrock typical of west-central and central Florida make the area susceptible to sinkhole activity. However, the geologic setting and potential impacts to structures is complicated by the presence of shrink-swell clays that cover the limestone materials, organic infilled paleokarst features or poor construction site grading practices. Subsidence-like damage to houses can result from other mechanisms such as decay and compaction of buried organic debris and organic-rich sediments, or movement of shrink-swell clays. This paper will present investigative methods and case histories that detail the extent of the field investigations, often with conflicting conclusions.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
4th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1998 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
Ericson, Wayne A. and Smith, Ted J., "Is It a Sinkhole?" (1998). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 3.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/4icchge/4icchge-session08/3
Is It a Sinkhole?
St. Louis, Missouri
Claims for sinkhole damages have increased significantly since the passage of legislation in 1969 requiring Florida insurance companies to provide sinkhole coverage for residential properties. At many sites, there is little surficial evidence of karst activity (i.e. Areas of subsidence and depressions) to provide a direct link between a suspected sinkhole and damage to the structure. Whatever the cause of the damage, sinkhole damage investigations are becoming increasingly important. The karstic terrain and limestone bedrock typical of west-central and central Florida make the area susceptible to sinkhole activity. However, the geologic setting and potential impacts to structures is complicated by the presence of shrink-swell clays that cover the limestone materials, organic infilled paleokarst features or poor construction site grading practices. Subsidence-like damage to houses can result from other mechanisms such as decay and compaction of buried organic debris and organic-rich sediments, or movement of shrink-swell clays. This paper will present investigative methods and case histories that detail the extent of the field investigations, often with conflicting conclusions.
