Скачать или смотреть Unusual Soil Cliffs at Porthtowan Explained

Here at Porthtowan today and wanted to show you these fantastic features. Soil cliffs aren’t all that common in Cornwall — most of our cliffs are solid rock — but these shallow 3–4 metre cliffs are made of gravelly clay.

You can tell they’re clay because of the way water has cut through them, carving out deep gullies while the sides still stand thanks to the cohesion in the clay. This material is likely a raised beach deposit, or possibly even head, and it tells us a lot about the landscape here.

If you’re building in Porthtowan or in any of the flat river valleys that run out to the sea in Cornwall, chances are you’re not building on rock at all — you’re building on soil. That means you’ll need a geotechnical investigation to understand the ground strength, potential settlement, and whether the clay is plastic enough to heave when wet.

I’ve been the Down to Earth Geologist. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more content like this.

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