Mapping of quick clay by electrical resistivity tomography under structural constraint

• Assessment of conventional ERT inversions for quick clay mapping using synthetic tests
• Compare two inversion codes for ERT processing
• Propose a three-step approach for reliable quick clay mapping
• Representative case histories

Geotechnical projects usually rely on traditional sounding and drilling investigations. Drilling only provides point information and the geology needs to be interpolated between these points. Near surface geophysical methods can provide information to fill those gaps. Norwegian case studies are presented to illustrate how two-dimensional electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) can be used to accurately map the extent of quick clay deposits. Quick clay may be described as highly sensitive marine clay that changes from a relatively stiff condition to a liquid mass when disturbed. Quick clay slides present a geo-hazard and therefore layers of sensitive clay need to be mapped in detail. They are usually characterized by higher resistivity than non-sensitive clay and ERT is therefore a suitable approach to identify their occurrence. However, our experience shows that ERT cannot resolve this small resistivity contrast near large anomalies such as a bedrock interface. For this reason, a constrained inversion of ERT data was applied to delineate quick clay extent both vertically and laterally. As compared to the conventional unconstrained inversions, the constrained inversion models exhibit sharper resistivity contrasts and their resistivity values agree better with in situ measurements.