• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1-13
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• 2009

Liquefaction is a significant threat to structures on loose saturated sandy soil deposits in the event of an earthquake, and can often cause catastrophic damage, economic loss, and loss of life. Nevertheless, the Korean peninsula has for a long time been recognized as a safe region with respect to the hazard of liquefaction, as the peninsula is located in a moderate seismicity region, and there have been no reports of liquefaction, with the exception of references in some historical documents. However, some earthquakes that have recently occurred in different parts of the world have led to liquefaction in non-plastic silty soils, a soil type that can be found in many of the western coastal areas of Korea. In this study, we first present procedures for evaluating the liquefaction potential, and calculate the liquefaction potential index (LPI) distribution at two western coastal sites using both piezocone penetration test (CPTu) data and standard penetration test (SPT) data. The LPI is computed by integrating liquefaction potential over a depth of 20m, and provides an estimate of liquefaction-related surface damage. In addition, we compared the LPI values obtained from CPTu and SPT, respectively. Our research found that the CRR values from CPTu were lower than those from the SPT, particularly in the range between 40 and 120 for the corrected tip resistance, (qc1N)CS, from the CPTu, or in the range of CRR less than 0.23, resulting in relatively high LPI values. Moreover, it was observed that the differences in the CRR between the two methods were relatively higher for soils with high fine contents.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.235-248
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• 2010

To construct the standard methods for evaluation of physicochemical characteristics of tailings in Korea, specific gravity, paste pH, grain size, mineral compositions and heavy metal concentrations of total 26 tailings from 21 metallic mines were analyzed. Specific gravity of tailings ranged from 2.61 to 4.31 (avg. 3.04), and sand and silt grain were dominant in the tailings. Ranges of paste pH were 2.1-9.5 in tailings (7.1-9.2 at magmatic, skarn and hydrothermal replacement deposits and 2.1-9.5 at hydrothermal vein deposits). Additionally, hydrothermal vein deposits could be reclassified into three categories: (1) paste pH>7.0, (2) 4.0