Articles

Geo-Institute Technical Seminar

 
Sands and gravels are used to make concrete and facilitate the construction of structures.  In addition, sands and gravels are needed as free-draining backfill behind retaining walls.  Low plasticity sandy clays are used to replace expansive clays below ground-supported floor slabs and to reduce the post-construction potential vertical movements of the subgrade.  Traditionally, the sands, gravels, and select fill soils were present in river and creek channels and in the adjacent flood plains.  These materials were mined until they were not profitable.  The spoils created when mining these materials were placed haphazardly on the flood plains.  With urban development, levees and dams have been constructed on these materials to protect the citizens of towns and cities from flooding.  This presentation will outline the problems that past mining activities are creating for the existing levees and dams.
 

 
Ms. Anita Branch, PE, has worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for more than 25 years in several districts including the Huntington District in Kentucky and in the Fort Worth District in Texas.  She has worked on numerous geotechnical and wetland projects associated with the Mississippi River, Trinity River, San Antonio River, the Lewisville Dam, New Orleans Levees, etc.  Although she has performed the geotechnical investigations and provided foundation recommendations for numerous buildings and structures on military bases, she has a passion for determining the safety of levees and dams.  Ms. Branch, PE, obtained her BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from the Virginia Tech University where she studied under Professor Micheal Duncan who was one of the pioneers of using the finite element method to study soil structure interaction.