Soil samples in need advice on results - 02/05/21 05:30 PM
Hello and I am relatively new to the forum. I have a 5-6 Acre lake I am planning on my property. Before I spent any money moving dirt I wanted to get some real analysis done. I hired a geo-technical engineering firm to core sample the lake site as well as a future home site. I guess the good news is that the area is notorious for thick clay deposits and the sampling seemed to confirm that.
Several holes were dug to 25' and from that I can see the soil condition is heavy clay (CH) well past my 25' sample. I intend to have a lake depth of about a dozen feet or so so I hope this works. One thing that confused me was they took a surface soil sample (several) and ran a conductivity test on this. From what I understand the conductivity of the surface is 6.3e-8. I have no clue what this means and tried to understand it a bit better. I have a call into the Geo Engineering team to help me decipher this but thought I would ask here as well.
I read some information that conductivity of under 1-e9 is considered good for holding water. My surface material at least does not meet those conditions. However the plasticity of the clay is in the mid 50's to over 70 if we go deeper. Will i have any issues if that plastic material is spread in a nice thick layer across the entire lake bottom and sides?
Location is south Bastrop County Texas. Further north of me is a black clay soil while most of mine is brown, orange and black in spots. Anyone have suggestions on what questions to ask the Geo firm?
BTW - The watershed has plenty of area to fill this lake. I think we figured it to be 700 acres so obviously a wide spilway that goes around the lake is part of the plan.
Several holes were dug to 25' and from that I can see the soil condition is heavy clay (CH) well past my 25' sample. I intend to have a lake depth of about a dozen feet or so so I hope this works. One thing that confused me was they took a surface soil sample (several) and ran a conductivity test on this. From what I understand the conductivity of the surface is 6.3e-8. I have no clue what this means and tried to understand it a bit better. I have a call into the Geo Engineering team to help me decipher this but thought I would ask here as well.
I read some information that conductivity of under 1-e9 is considered good for holding water. My surface material at least does not meet those conditions. However the plasticity of the clay is in the mid 50's to over 70 if we go deeper. Will i have any issues if that plastic material is spread in a nice thick layer across the entire lake bottom and sides?
Location is south Bastrop County Texas. Further north of me is a black clay soil while most of mine is brown, orange and black in spots. Anyone have suggestions on what questions to ask the Geo firm?
BTW - The watershed has plenty of area to fill this lake. I think we figured it to be 700 acres so obviously a wide spilway that goes around the lake is part of the plan.