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Civ eng - geleogy questions help

Hello,

Just been going through past papers for geology as a module for Civil engineering. There are a couple of questions which I'm hoping someone could cast a light on:

1)Using a sketch graph explain the difference between brittle and ductile materials. What's the significance of this for engineering?

2)What geological features arise from brittle and ductile compression of rock? Under what circumstance is rock likely to deform in a ductile manner?

3)Basalt, Hornfel and dark crystalline limestone. Identify which rock types are those. How do you tell which is which?

Thanks :smile:
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alex p
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Original post by quantum123
Hello,

Just been going through past papers for geology as a module for Civil engineering. There are a couple of questions which I'm hoping someone could cast a light on:

1)Using a sketch graph explain the difference between brittle and ductile materials. What's the significance of this for engineering?

2)What geological features arise from brittle and ductile compression of rock? Under what circumstance is rock likely to deform in a ductile manner?

3)Basalt, Hornfel and dark crystalline limestone. Identify which rock types are those. How do you tell which is which?

Thanks :smile:




1) imagine building on a ductile clay or a brittle basalt, the considerations for foundations considerably change, e.g. with the clay you need huge foundations or not build at all and with the basalt you could flood it with concrete as support.

2) brittle would be faults, slickensides and probably more i cant remember, ductile would be folds, cleavage etc. its more likely to deform in a ductile way when it is warmed or containing fluids.

3) hornfels will have a specific cleavage, limestone will shine and react to acid, basalt will do neither, will be made of roughly 2-3mm crystals.

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