In this article, the accurate mapping of the extent of quick clay deposits by 2D electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) was demonstrated. As highly sensitive marine clay, quick clay needs to be mapped in detail since it is regarded as an indicator for geo-hazards. Nevertheless, it has been proved that small resistivity contrast near large anomalies cannot be resolved by conventional ERT methods. Therefore, constraints were involved in theinversion of ERT data to achieve delineation of quick clay extent. The experimental results revealed that this constrained inversion models exhibit sharper resistivity contrasts and enhanced consistence with the results ofin situ measurements.
In this part, the proposed method was applied in two real-life cases.
The first case suggested that interpolation between soundings quick clay investigations usingdiscrete rotary pressure soundings can be significantly enhanced byusing ERT profiles to interpolate. In this case, the resistivities inverted from theERT data were perfectlyaligned with the data provided byin situmeasurements,indicating excellent resolutionof the ERT method.The second case showed thatthe threshold resistivityfor the quick clay zoning should be adjustedaccording to theRCPT soundings of each case/site. In this case, however, ERT imaging of layers of homogeneous materialrequiredfor the calculation of slope stability was ineffective.
In conclusion, priori constraints play a key in the reduction of the uncertainty inherent in the inversion process ofERT data for quick clay mapping. Firstly, standard processing is employed to provide a basic idea of the subsurface. Then, thebedrock depth is used to reprocess the ERT data with aconstrained inversion. The combined investigation provides a continuous andrelatively detailed picture of the subsurface in costeffective manner.Finally, two cases in Norway were used to verify the proposed method.