The
Danube Loess: An International Regional Geoscience and Ground Engineering Study:
A Proposed 25 Year Programme 2000 - 2025
"But luckily we are left with the adventure of
classification, the thrill of diagrams, the allure of methodology." Claudio
Magnis: Danubio (1986) Danube (1989) p.16
General Aims
This is a multi-faceted programme, geoscience and ground engineering,
and the general aim is to consider the loess in the Danube basin from a sedimentological,
stratigraphical, geochemical, archaeological and geotechnical point of view. The Danube
basin is defined as the catchment of the River Danube and its tributaries. Some of these
tributaries are major rivers in their own right (the Tisza, Sava, Drava etc) and the whole
system represents a widespread loess region which involves many countries.
The study will be regional in that it
focusses on the Danube region, and it will be international in that at least ten countries
will be involved. The project will be divided into five 5-year tranches.
Geoscience
The Danube region provides an isolatable system within which to study
the production of loess material, transport paths and mechanisms, depositional styles and
deposit distribution. The loess is perceived as being essentially mountain loess, derived
from the Alps, the Carpathians and other mountain systems, and the major transport paths
are provided by the major rivers. But the geoscience will probably be dominated by
stratigraphy, and perhaps by investigations on the very impressive loess deposits in
Voyvodina. Very important stratigraphical observations were made in the Danube basin and
it seems likely that many productive co-operative investigations can be carried on the
Danube loess.
Eventually a sedimentological model will be
produced to demonstrate deposit histories and characteristics throughout the basin.
Ground Engineering
There is much human involvement with the loess in the region and
various engineering problems have arisen. The solution to these problems will be aided by
deployment of the data collected in the geoscience part of this project.
Of particular interest are problems of
hydroconsolidation and subsidence (the major basin-wide loess problem, of landsliding and
slope failure in thick deposits, of contamination and deterioration, of the potential for
radwaste disposal in thick deposits and various hydrological and hydrogeological problems.
The Region & the Countries
Major mountain systems : the Alps, the Carpathians, the Dinaric Alps,
the Transylvanian Alps, the Balkan Mountains - all serving to define the geomorphology and
character of the region. Major rivers: Danube, Inn, Drava, Sava, Tisza and perhaps the Olt
and the Morava.
The countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia,
Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly others. UK involvement
for organisational and bibliographic reasons; USA with a corner in amino-acid dating;
visitors from slightly more distant parts of Europe and surrounds.
Background & Associations
This is the region where Professor Julius Fink and collegues from many countries
set up the INQUA Sub-commission on Loess in Europe, in 1961. Fink wished to bring
together studies from many countries to produce an overview of loess in Europe and to
settle some problems of stratigraphy and dating. Fink early realised that loess
stratigraphy was a valuable window on to Quaternary events and that the European loess had
enormous scientific potential.
From Fink’s pioneering work in the
1960s developed the world-wide Loess Commission and the Loess groups of today. The
Danube region where the Fink team worked is still of great interest ; the study of loess
stratigraphy is now widespread and rapidly developing in the Danube basin and now
dominates loess investigations in the region. Now the study of sedimentological processes
and engineering problems has a lower priority in Danubian investigations.
Some aspects of Fink’s mapping
endevours will need to be developed and enlarged; the Dirtmap project of dust and loess
deposit mapping at the Max Planck Institute in Jena(now revived at the Lancaster
Environment Centre) has some relevance here and collaborative investigations will be
established. The Danube Loess project was an official project for the INQUA Loess
Commission, and for the Collapsing Soils Commission of the International Association of
Engineering Geology & the Environment, and will be continued by various post-2003
offshoots.
Some Initial Targets
Comparative mineralogies & geochemistries of deposits in south
Germany, Hungary and north Bulgaria; and also comparisons between deposits in Ukraine,
Romania and the Danube basin
Feasibility studies relating to the
construction of a nuclear-waste repository in the loess of N.W.Bulgaria, outline maps of
thick deposits in the entire region.
In 2008 there will be a meeting to discuss
'Danubian Loess' at the DEUQUA meeting in Vienna, and in 2009 there will be LoessFest09 in
Novi Sad in Voyvodina when there will again be an emphasis on Danubian loess. In 2011 the
18th INQUA Congress will take place in Bern, not that far from the source of the Danube;
there will probably be a 'Danube Loess' field trip.
Some Eventual Targets
Detailed mapping of the entire region, maps showing thickness and
nature of deposits, subsidence parameters and other useful engineering parameters. Basin
wide sedimentological models showing sources and transport paths and including sediment
budgets. Detailed mineralogies for major deposits. Assessments of hazards and economic
potentials.Very detailed stratigraphies and elegant correlations throughout the basin.
Map of Loess distribution in
western Slovakia
Map produced by Slovakian Academy of Sciences (below) |
