Water Seepage Source at the Extension of Tourah Clay Quarry, Southeastern Cairo Based on Geological and Geoelectrical Resistivity Measurements

Abstract

The cement industry depends essentially on the clay as one of the main raw materials for the industry. The Tourah clay quarry is one of the oldest and largest quarries of clays in Egypt, which is located to the southeastern of Cairo. The biggest problems that affect the clay quarries and may cause them to be closed forever is that, the water reaches them and leads to the difficulty of extracting raw materials from the quarries and ultimately leads to their closure. During the mining operations and extraction of raw materials from the extension of Tourah clay quarry, a water leak was observed that reached the bottom of the quarry, and the water began to increase and led to the difficulty of entering and exiting the equipments from the quarry. A detailed geological field study and geoelectrical resistivity survey were conducted in and around the extension of Tourah clay quarry to find out the source and cause of the water leak, which was increasing rapidly on the bottom of quarry. A geoelectrical resistivity survey was performed in the form of thirteen vertical electrical soundings and two horizontal profiling were made using the Wenner configuration in order to understand and solve the formentioned problem. The interpretation of the geoelectrical data shows three main units; surface layer from dry sand, gravel and rock fragments followed by a second layer of loose sand and is partially saturated with water and finally a clay layer which is extracted as a raw material in cement industry. Accordingly, based on the field geological observations in addition to the geoelectrical resistivity interpretations, we can conclude that, the possible water source in the bottom of clay quarry is due to the second loose partially saturated sand unit and the direction of water invasion in this particular area comes from the northeastern direction. To save the extension of Tourah clay quarry from closure it is recommended to extract the water from the sand unit before it reached the quarry bottom either by water head compensation or dewatering of the well field area.