Synonyms
Alteration products; Lateritic soils; Saprolites; Weathering products
Definition
Residual soil is the material resulting from the in situ weathering of the parent rock.
Residual soils are distributed throughout many regions of the world, such as Africa, South Asia, Australia, Southeastern North America, Central and South America, and considerable regions of Europe. The largest areas and thickness of these soils occur normally in humid tropical regions, such as Brazil, Nigeria, South India, Singapore, and the Philippines.
Characteristics
According to Duarte (2002), the diversity exhibited by residual soils is due, not so much to the lithology of the original rock, but mainly to external factors such as climate, topography, and vegetation cover; factors that provide distinctive weathering processes and, consequently, distinctive weathering products – the residual soils. At the first International Conference on Tropical Residual Soils, it was proposed to divide such soils into...
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References
Blight GE (1997) In: Blight GE, Technical committee 25 on the properties of Tropical and Residual Soils of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (eds) Mechanics of residual soils. Balkema, Rotterdam
Brand EW, Phillipson HB (1985) In: Technical committee 25 on the properties of Tropical and Residual Soils of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (ed) Sampling and testing of residual soils. A review of international practice. Scorpion Press, Hong Kong
Duarte IMR (2002) Solos residuais de rochas granitóides a Sul do Tejo. Características geológicas e geotécnicas [Residual soils of granitoid rocks to south of the Tagus River. Geological and geotechnical characteristics]. (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, in Portuguese). University of Évora, Évora, Portugal
Gomes CF (1988) Argilas. O que são e para que servem. [Clays. What they are and what they are for]. Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisboa
Townsend FC (1985) Geotechnical characteristics of residual soils. J Geotech Eng 111(1):77–94
Vaughan PR (1988) Characterising the mechanical properties of in-situ residual soil. In: Proceedings of the II international conference on geomechanics in tropical soils, Singapore, vol 2, pp 469–487
Wesley LD (2010) Fundamentals of soil mechanics for sedimentary and residual soils. Wiley, New Jersey
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Duarte, I.M.R., Rodrigues, C.M.G. (2018). Residual Soils. In: Bobrowsky, P.T., Marker, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73568-9_237
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