Mapping and Characterizing of Soil in Elgo Town

Abstract

This project is the mapping and characterizing of soil in Elgo town and which was planned to help people about the town more. Many structures such as buildings, roads and other civil engineering structures built over expansive soils are damaged because of the high content of montimoriillonite in the soil. Proper understanding of the properties of the soil helps to understand the actual causes of failure of structure. This study is done with the intension of examining the index properties of soils of Elgo town. The following laboratory tests were conducted Such as natural moisture content, specific gravity, grain size analysis and atterberg limit based on samples taken from different kebeles of the study area. A total of Eight Disturbed soil sample are collected from eight systematically selected test pits at a depth of 2m. According to the result of this project, Moisture content ranges between 29% to34.58%, the liquid limit and plastic limit varies from 92% to 110 % and 29 to 42% respectively. Plasticity Index ranges between 58 – 70%, Clay fraction ranges between 46.36 to 61.60%, Specific Gravity ranges between 2.69 to 2.75. Generally, the soil in the study area was high clay content.