Subsurface characterization of a quick-clay vulnerable area using near-surface geophysics and hydrological modelling

Salas-Romero, Silvia; Malehmir, Alireza; Snowball, Ian; Dessirier, Benoît

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-1685-2019

Articles | Volume 10, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-1685-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-1685-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 5

Research article

|

11 Oct 2019

Research article |

| 11 Oct 2019

Subsurface characterization of a quick-clay vulnerable area using near-surface geophysics and hydrological modelling

Silvia Salas-Romero, Alireza Malehmir, Ian Snowball, and Benoît Dessirier

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Final revised paper (published on 11 Oct 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Feb 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'REVIEW SE-2019-22', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Feb 2019
- AC1: 'Responses to RC1 comments', Silvia Salas Romero, 05 May 2019
RC2: 'Review of Salas-Romero et al., "Subsurface Structures of a quick-clay sliding prone area..."', Adam Booth, 25 Mar 2019
- AC2: 'Responses to RC2 comments', Silvia Salas Romero, 05 May 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Silvia Salas Romero on behalf of the Authors (08 Jul 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Jul 2019) by Michal Malinowski

RR by Adam Booth (02 Aug 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear authors,

I've read your revised paper and think that you have done a good job of addressing the comments I raised previously; thanks for your careful responses and edits. I think that you have sharpened the focus of the paper, and removed the ambiguities in the geophysical interpretation. As before, I'm not sure I can comment so well on the revisions you've made to your hydrological modelling, but hopefully the other reviewer(s) can guide you on this.

I did spot a few small editorial issues that you should correct, and a need for a couple of technical clarifications - but I don't think that these will take you long to resolve.

Best regards,
Adam

Small editorial corrections:
P2L22: Start a new paragraph here.
P3L1: "for testing whether an", rather than "for testing that an".
P3L17: "surface at a the landslide scar"... 'the', or 'a' - choose one!
P5L25: "provide" rather than "allow to produce"
P7L3: confusing use of "both". Do you mean for each line part?
Title of Section 5.1: While these are interpretation of data along your "Land Seismic Lines", the interpretation isn't exclusively of land seismic. I suggest you term this "Onshore datasets", and then Section 5.1 "Offshore datasets"?
P8L8: I would start this paragraph with the reference to Table 3, which currently appears at the end of it.
P8L14: Add "values" after "high".
P8L17: do you need spaces either side of your hyphen? Such that the text reads "...leached clay deposits - potential quick clays" ?
P9L1: I think "and" should be "an"?
P9L12: "do not to delineate"... not sure exactly what you mean here.
P10L2: "show", not "shows"
Technical points:
P5L27: Link the colour in the greyscale to the anticipated contrast. e.g., do you expect the coarse materials or the fine materials to have the higher density?
P9L13-17: In the figure, your white dashed line shows the depth at which the RMT data are unreliable. Unreliable in what sense? Because you suggest that they better-delineate the position of B1 compared to the ATEM data but, if the figure is to be believed, then the ATEM data should be more reliable.

You might also wish to consider explicitly mentioning the RMT/ATEM data as part of the background review. You do mention resistivity data in P3L10, but I still struggled a bit to find where they came from when it came to Figures 5 and 6.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (05 Aug 2019) by Michal Malinowski

AR by Silvia Salas Romero on behalf of the Authors (12 Aug 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (20 Aug 2019) by Michal Malinowski

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (03 Sep 2019) by CharLotte Krawczyk (Executive editor)

AR by Silvia Salas Romero on behalf of the Authors (10 Sep 2019) Manuscript

Short summary

Land–river reflection seismic, hydrogeological modelling, and magnetic investigations in an area prone to quick-clay landslides in SW Sweden provide a detailed description of the subsurface structures, such as undulating fractured bedrock, a sedimentary sequence of intercalating leached and unleached clay, and coarse-grained deposits. Hydrological properties of the coarse-grained layer help us understand its role in the leaching process that leads to the formation of quick clays in the area.