Immersion test of loess in ground fissures in Shuanghuaishu, Shaanxi Province, China

Abstract

The ground fissure of Shuanghuaishu in Shaanxi Province, China, is a tectonic ground fissure developed in the northern Loess Plateau of the Weihe Basin. Remarkably, it exhibits multiple activities under heavy rainfall conditions. To explore how heavy rainfall infiltration can induce ground fissures to reactivate, we conducted an in situ large-scale water immersion test on the ground fissure zone. Through measurement of soil moisture content and observation of subsidence and deformation of surface and soil layers at different depths before and after water immersion, we determined the variation law of soil moisture content and the humidification deformation of the ground fissure zone after rain infiltration. Results show that ground fissures destroy the structure of soil layers and form a certain width of influence zone, which allows surface water to seep through the fissure zone into the deep soil below the relative aquifuge. After water immersion, the deformation of the soil in the ground fissure zone is obviously larger than that in the non-fracture zone, the influence zone width of hanging wall of the ground fissure is larger than that of the footwall, and the influence range on the upper soil layer is larger than that on the lower soil layer.