View Paper

GEOTECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BARLOW-OJIBWAY CLAY IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

Session: Soil Mechanics I / Mécanique des sols I

Andrew Drevininkas, Downunder Geotechnical Limited (Canada)
Masoud Manzari, Thurber Engineering (Canada)
Tony Sangiuliano, Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (Canada)
David Staseff, Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (Canada)

After the Late Wisconsinan glaciation retreat, the last proglacial lake was formed in northern Ontario and Quebec and is called Lake Barlow-Ojibway. The clay is typically known to be slightly overconsolidated, soft to firm in consistency, with a high compression index. To date a consolidated study based on large scale data in order to provide typical ranges of geotechnical properties and possible correlations for this specific lake deposit has not been conducted.

Hundreds of geotechnical investigations have been carried out within the Lake Barlow-Ojibway clay deposits in northern Ontario by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario and others since the 1950s. This paper presents a summary of all the testing available to the authors in conjunction with the results from published literature. An analysis of the compiled results is further provided to characterize the compressibility characteristics of the Lake Barlow-Ojibway clays and its correlations with simple geotechnical index properties.