Geoharzards Traps Encountered on the Route of the Highway Pitesti-Sibiu, Romania
Authors
Mihaela Stanciucu, Adrian Diaconu, Iuliana Dogaru, Ramona Mihai
DOI
Abstract
The architecture of the geological structure is very often an intricate composition of structural rock and soil masses, affected by divers and independently or simultaneously discontinuities syn, or post genetic, which sustain one or more local and regional aquifers, and is continuously submitted to gravitational, and seismically hazardous actions. Usually, all large infrastructure projects invariable pass through one or more complex areas in which objectives are affected by geohazards at various scales. This is also the case of the route of the highway Pitesti-Sibiu, Romania, which was investigated in several field campaigns to decrypt the complex geological and hydrogeological structure. Along 50km sections of the route, the highway steps over four large geologic structures (from South-Est to North -West): Getic Depression, Subcarpathian thrust belt, and Post-tectonic Cover of South Carpathians, and effectively cut up a stratigraphic column starting from Paleocene sandstones and claystone, up to Quaternary alluvial, deluvial or terrace deposits. All structures, which are situated less than 150 km from the Vrancea Seismic Zone, are affected by a few deep intra-Moesical faults and more recent and superficial thrust faults which turn into blocky fractured shapes in the upper deposits. Apart from the major seismic hazard which derives from the tectonic network of main and secondary faults and the vicinity with one of the strongest seismic epicentral areas of Europe, the expansive behavior of encountered soils, high terrain slopes, actual erosional processes along rivers and hydrogeological regime of regional aquifers sets as many additional traps of geohazards to highway route. The paper elaborates and details, one by one, all enounced geohazards, which were studied by diverse and numerous investigation methods: geological, geotechnical, hydrogeological, and geophysical, by a multidisciplinary team.