Author Institution: Sverdrup & Parcel, Inc., Consulting Engineers, St. Louis, Mo

Bagley, C. T.

The Ohio Journal of Science

KnowledgeBank at OSU

THE OHIO JOURNAL OF SCIENCEVOL. LIII MARCH, 1953 No. 2SUBSURFACE STUDY OF GLACIAL DEPOSITS ATCLEVELAND, OHIOC. T. BAGLEYSverdrup & Parcel, Inc., Consulting Engineers, St. Lotus, Mo.The soil1 strata underlying the City of Cleveland, Ohio, have been laid downlargely through glacial action in a complex fashion. A correlation and mappingof the strata throughout this area would be very helpful to geologic studies andengineering projects. The undertaking of a correlation of this locality is difficultbecause of the irregularity and complexity of glacial action, and more so becauseof the fact that exposures of glacial drift are to a large extent concealed by a thickSCALE IN MILESPFIGURE 1. The Cleveland Region.blanket of alluvium deposited during the high-level stages of the post-glacial lakes.Dependence must be had to greatest extent upon the information given by soilborings.This paper outlines such a study for a relatively small area within the narrowvalley of the present Cuyahoga River, approximately 3 miles south of Lake Erie.:In this study the term "soil" is used in the sense commonly accepted by engineers engagedin foundation and soil mechanics studies. It means essentially unconsolidated material over-lying bedrock.THE OHIO JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 53(2): 65, March, 1953.66 C. T. BAGLEY Vol. LIIIFrom a number of soil borings in the area, continuous till sheets alternating withlacustrine clay beds are identified, and a picture of the drift sequence is obtained.Extrapolation of soil information from this area to other parts of Cleveland wouldbe unwise until more boring data are available, because of probable rapid lateralchange. But within the area studied (fig. 1) several continuous soil strata can berelied upon to large degree.RECENT GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF THE CLEVELAND AREADuring the Tertiary period the streams of the Cleveland area developed deep,relatively narrow valleys in their northward courses into what is now Lake Erie.Then, during the Pleistocene epoch, ice sheets advanced southward into the area,dammed the streams, reduced the hills, and left the valleys largely filled withdeposits of till. Of the major stages of glaciation, the last that covered this areasr- FT. AEa800500DELTA TERRACE..PRESENT VALLEY^CUYAH06A R.-v^400 SURFACE OF BEDROCK -*^^k300goo1000^.LACUSTRINE%DEPOSITSyALTERNATE POSSIBLE OUTLINES " \ \OF ANCIENT CUYAHOOA RIVER VALLEY XSCALE\IN MILES1iiENE^7006005004003002001000FIGURE 2. Cross Section of Cuyahoga River Valley.was the Wisconsin stage. As Williams (1940) states, it has to a great degreeobliterated the work of its predecessor, the Illinoian stage. The advance andrecession of each major glacier was marked by many minor reversals with theseasons.A series of glacial and post-glacial lakes existed during and after the recessionof the Wisconsin glacier from the Cleveland area. Some of these lake stages weremuch higher than present Lake Erie. One or two were probably 15 to 30 feetlower.TOPOGRAPHYThe general topography of Cleveland is indicated by figure 1. A delta plain,established during the time of the high-level glacial lakes, fills the pre-glacialCuyahoga River valley to an elevation of 660 to 680 feet above sea level. Muchof downtown Cleveland is built upon this delta. The present Cuyahoga Riverhas cut its valley some 90 feet lower, and now flows at the level of present LakeErie (573 feet above sea level) through a flood-plain Yi to 1 mile wide.No. 2 SUBSURFACE GLACIAL DEPOSITS 67Within 5 to 8 miles of Lake Erie, the present river valley lies generally west ofa pre-glacial river valley (U. S. Geol. Bull. No. 818, 1931). Bedrock slopes steeplydown to the east in the area where the borings under study were made, whichagrees with reports that the pre-glacial valley is very deep (fig. 2).GLACIAL AND STREAM ACTION IN THE CUYAHOGA VALLEYDuring the period of glacial advance, the Cuyahoga River valley was un-doubtedly widened, and the deepest portions of the valley filled with glacial out-PlGURE 3. Location of Borings.wash and till. When the glacier front was at or near Cleveland, water was pondedto the south. During the Wisconsin stage the ice sheet covered and uncoveredthis area a number of times. With each advance a layer of till was deposited,usually a stiff, unstratified, stony clay. Following each recession, a blanket ofstratified sand, silt and clay was laid down over the till in the waters of the pondedlake. After the final departure of the ice sheet northward, alluvium, largely sand,was brought down the valley by the river and laid over the deposits of till andlacustrine material. Deltas of various heights were formed and eroded away with68 C. T. BAGLEY Vol. LIIIthe changes in level of the post-glacial lakes. When the lake levels droppedthe Cuyahoga River began to carve its new valley. While Lake Erie was at itslowest level, it is probable that the river cut its narrow valley deeper than it is atpresent, re-sorting some of the material found somewhat below present lake level.The unusual stiffness of topmost layers of clay in some of the bore holes is inter-preted as the result of dessication of lacustrine clay during a lake stage lower thanthe present.SOIL BORINGS AND LABORATORY TESTSData from soil borings at five sites were available for this study, as shown infigure 3, and as listed below.Site I: 4 continuous tube sample borings to bedrock.Site II: 5 continuous tube sample borings to a depth of 60 to 150 feet.7 standard Gow-type borings, most of which went to bedrock, witha jar sample taken every 5 feet.Site III: 2 continuous tube sample borings to a depth of 150 feet.Site IV: 2 continuous tube sample borings to a depth of 50 feet.5 standard Gow-type borings to a depth of 100 to 150 feet, withjar samples every 5 feet.Site V: 4 borings to bedrock and 3 borings 220 feet deep, with jar samplesevery 10 feet, and continuous tube samples from one hole from depth170 feet to bedrock.From the continuous tube samples, unconfined compressive strengths and watercontents were obtained. Physical descriptions of most of the samples wereavailable. These list the type of soil, color, approximate consistency, stratificationif any, inclusions, etc. In addition to the data obtained from the soil boring andlaboratory reports, the writer examined some 150 jar samples from Site V, andran such laboratory tests as were pertinent.Samples of till from the borings are typically stiff clay, without stratification,and often contain stones and other inclusions in irregular manner. Samples oflacustrine clay deposits are usually softer than adjacent tills, and often showclear horizontal partings of silt or fine sand.CORRELATIONSFigure 4 shows the types of soil found in each bore hole, and apparent cor-relation from boring to boring and site to site. Symbols used on the figure are asfollows:Soil Types—F = fluviatile—sand, gravel, river silt; also includes man-made fill.L = lacustrine.Ls = lacustrine, stratified.Lu = lacustrine, unstratified.T = till—unsorted material.Tw = till, waterlaid, usually having some sorted characteristics.O = glacial outwash.Soil Strata—A = fluvio-delta deposit and river-laid material.B = generally soft lacustrine clays.Bi = till, soft to very stiff.C = till, medium to stiff.D = lacustrine clay, soft to medium.E = stony clay till, stiff to extremely stiff.P = lacustrine silty clay, medium to stiff.G = hard stony clay till, and outwash of sand and gravel.No. 2 SUBSURFACE GLACIAL DEPOSITS 69Figure 5 is a generalized recapitulation of the information of figure 4, drawnto horizontal as well as vertical scale.It is to be noted that 4 layers, B. C. D. and E, are continuous through all thesites. Layers below E are interrupted only by the rise of the bedrock across theirlevels.Layer A is also continuous as a general, fluvial deposit, but the typical greysand of the post-glacial delta deposit, which in the present river valley has beeneroded to a relatively thin layer 10 to 20 feet in thickness, is found in some drillholes to be entirely removed and replaced by a flood-plain river deposit of stonysilt, peat, etc.Till layer Bi intrudes between layers A and B on the east (Section B-B). Thistill layer is absent from the area of Sites I, II, and III.FIGURE 4. Borings and Soil Strata.The general sequence is that of a"(basal till, Layer G, (which in some boringsmay be weathered shale or a mixture of weathered shale and till), overlain byalternating lacustrine clay and till units. The lowest till layer, G, is interpretedas Illinoian. The three overlying till sheets, E, C, and Bi are interpreted asdeposited by three advances of the Wisconsin ice. Layer E, which is more compactthan the till of the two overlying sheets may be Tazewell, and the two uppersheets may be early Cary and late Cary, respectively. This postulated Wisconsinsequence correlates with that recently determined by White (1950) for Wisconsintill deposits at the surface south of Cleveland, in Summit, Medina, Portage, andadjacent counties. Still farther south, Illinoian till exists at the surface beyondWisconsin drift (White, 1942).70 C. T. BAGLEY Vol. LIIIPockets of stratified material occur in the till sheets at various points. Theseare "water-laid till," released from the ice into ponds or streams beneath theglacier, and sorted before final deposition. Other instances of water-laid till areisolated bands of sorted or unsorted till, surrounded on all sides by typical lacustrinedeposits. In such case, samples may show definite stratification, yet have pebblesand sand particles scattered through the bands of clay. This is also typical ofwater-laid till, indicating the dropping of the till intermittently into a pondedarea from an overlying ice sheet or from floating ice cakes. In short, glacialdeposits do not adhere strictly to the three common classes ascribed to them: till,outwash, and lacustrine deposits; but may vary through a range of combinations.SECTION B-BFIGURE 5. Generalized Soil Strata.Top and bottom borders of each till sheet are irregular by their very nature, andalso from the erosion of melt-water streams laced through and under the ice.In spite of the irregularities of glacial deposits, the continuous layers indicatedin figures 4 and 5 seem well substantiated by the borings.All layers of clay beneath Layer A have been precompressed by the load of thedelta material, which extended up to elevation 680 at the end of the Glacial LakeWarren stage. Earlier, the delta was probably at an elevation between 760 and800, the levels of Glacial Lake Maumee. Thus, as noted by Peck (1948), withoutregard for the weight of the ice sheet which acted upon some of the clay layers,these have all been subjected to precompression on the order of the weight of from100 to 200 feet of sand, perhaps 5 to 10 tons per square foot.No. 2 SUBSURFACE GLACIAL DEPOSITS 71Location of bedrock eastward from the river is not indicated by the boringsavailable in this study. It may continue at a steep slope downward into the sealevel gorge indicated by some of the old gas well reports (U. S. Geol. Surv. Bull.No. 661, 1917), or it may conform to a more characteristic valley cross section forshale. In the latter case, the level of the bedrock found in the Site V boringsmay represent very nearly the lowest points of the preglacial valley.LITERATURE CITEDPeck, R. B. Dec. 10, 1948. Report on extension of ore storage facilities, Jones and LaughlinSteel Corporation (not published).White, G. W. 1942. Illinoian and Wisconsin drift of the Grand River lobe in eastern Ohio.Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 52.White, G. W. 1950. Influence of Wisconsin glacial stages on soil-group boundaries in north-eastern Ohio. Program and Abstracts, 1950 Cleveland meeting of A.A.A.S., Section E.Williams, A. B. 1940. Geology of the Cleveland region. Cleveland Museum of NaturalHistory.U. S. Geol. Surv. Bull. No. 661, 1917. Contributions to economic geology, Part II, A. TheCleveland Gas Field, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.U. S. Geol. Surv. Bull. No. 818, 1931. Geology and mineral resources of the Clevelanddistrict.

Subsurface Study of Glacial Deposits at Cleveland, Ohio

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/1811/4012/1/V53N02_053.pdf

Subsurface Study of Glacial Deposits at Cleveland, Ohio

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

KnowledgeBank at OSU