ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide a strategy using the guidelines in Eurocode 7 to clarify what is required when engineering glacial soils. Design and construction practice based on sound scientific and engineering principles will produce safe, economic, sustainable structures that are fit for purpose. The boreholes should be deep enough to extend beyond the zone of influence of the civil engineering structure. The most useful indicator of engineering behaviour is the percentage of fine-grained particles. Glacial soils are soils that are spatially variable in composition, fabric and structure: they are composite soils. In many cases, there will be only a single-stage ground investigation, which is a high-risk strategy. Predicting the performance of geotechnical structures and natural slopes is based on appropriate geological, topographical, hydrogeological, geomorphological, geotechnical and structural models and the interaction of those models. The geological model will be based on topographical, historical and geological maps, natural and excavated exposures, geophysical surveys and borehole logs.
