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Book Review |
B. F. Beck, A. J. Pettit & J. G. Herring (eds). Balkema, Rotterdam, 1999. 100 hardback; ix+478pp. ISBN 90-5809-046-9.
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The annual sinkhole conferences, first held in Florida and now migrating around the eastern USA, have become well established as the leading forums for engineers involved with the problems of cavernous, karstic limestone. Seventh in the series, this volume again provides an excellent current review of concepts and engineering practice.
Studies of sinkhole distribution take 15 papers. Prediction studies may have taken a setback, as one paper concludes that <300 new sinkholes formed in a single storm event in Georgia, USA, were not clustered around old sinkholes. However, understanding the concepts and geological background is still vital for engineers coping with the vagaries of karst.
Another 19 papers cover engineering on karst terranes that are prone to
sinkhole subsidence. A case history in Pennsylvania expounds the
benefits in compaction grouting, but two papers based on experience in
Florida and Tennessee favour cap grouting (rockhead sealing), and warn
against both compaction grouting and the installation of friction
piles. Remediation of sinkholes in highways, by either filling or
grouting, is described in Virginia, Slovenia, Puerto Rico and
Russia, and monitoring of railways to warn of collapse events is
also described from Russia. A paper on the karst in Maryland includes
comment on the effect of nearby quarry dewatering on a road failure
that caused a motorist to die. Gypsum's faster dissolution provides
extra engineering difficulties, and British experience provides two
papers that describe groundwater modelling to zone the hazard at Ripon,
and the use of grouting, geogrid reinforcement and concrete decking for
