The Camera Cone as an Effective Site Screening Tool

Abstract

Since long ago people have been interested in ‘looking’ into the soil, searching for mineral deposits or groundwater, for geotechnical purposes, and more recently also because of contamination detection. Basically there are two ways of gathering information about the subsoil: sampling and in situ measuring. Because of the soft soils in the Netherlands in situ measurement with the help of push away equipment has been popular in the Netherlands since the 1930’s. In situ measurement has several advantages: there is generally less disturbance than during drilling and sampling (and no exposure to air!), and the method is generally fast, and consequently relatively cheap. On the other hand, sampling has the paramount advantage that one gets the sample literally ‘in one’s hand’, so that it can be examined and unexpected features can be discerned from the richness of the visual image.