Técnicas no destructivas para la determinación de procesos de meteorización física y química en las Islas Shetland del Sur, Antártida
- M. Gomez-Heras 1
- J.A. Ortega-Becerril 1
- B. Oliva-Urcia 1
- J. López-Mártínez 1
- T. Schmid 2
- R. Fort 3
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1
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
info
- 2 Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medio Ambientales y Tecnológicas-CIEMAT
- 3 Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM)
ISSN: 1576-5172
Year of publication: 2021
Issue Title: X Congreso Geológico de España
Issue: 18
Pages: 1009
Type: Article
More publications in: Geotemas (Madrid)
Abstract
Raised beach deposits are a common feature in the South Shetland Islands. These deposits, formed mainly by glacioisos- tatic evolution, consist of accumulations of rounded centimetre to decimetre size pebbles. Once deposited, these pebbles undergo different physical weathering processes (e.g. cryoclasty, haloclasty and biodeterioration) leading to microcracking, which is usually invisible to the naked eye. At the same time, chemical weathering processes (e.g. oxidation of iron-rich minerals) cause colour changes. The establishment of patterns in the evolution of weathering on raised beaches of different ages (pre-Holocene to Holocene), serve to infer how various weathering processes have acted and how quickly. This work shows results from a series of non-destructive techniques such as spectrophotometry, rebound hardness (using Schmidt and Equotip hammer) and ultrasonic propagation velocity and discusses their effectiveness in discerning what physical and chemical weathering processes have taken place in the studied deposits. [This work was carried out in the frame of projects: CTM2014-57119-R and RTI2018-098099-B-I00 from the Spanish RDI National program and project S2018/NMT-4372 from the RD program of the regional government of Madrid.]