Definition
Mass movement caused by gradual lowering and thinning of underlying strata, under gravitational forces, toward an adjacent valley or slope
Cambering occurs where competent and permeable caprock overlies incompetent beds (e.g., clay, mudstone, siltstone, and sand). Following valley incision, the incompetent material is “extruded” from beneath the caprock initially as a result of stress relief and a reduction in shear strength due to pore pressure increases associated with thawing during periglaciation. The overlying competent beds develop a local dip, or “camber,” toward the valleys and, where relatively thin, sets of cross-slope subvertical parallel discontinuities may form, commonly developing into faults separating more steeply dipping blocks, referred to as “dip-and-fault” structure (Fig. 1) (Chandler et al. 1976; Hutchinson 1991). With time, this process breaks the caprock into discrete blocks “floating” in the medium of the underlying, weaker strata. Under lateral...
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References
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Hobbs, P., Barron, A.J.M. (2017). Cambering. In: Bobrowsky, P., Marker, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12127-7_40-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12127-7_40-1
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