Engineering-geological conditions of construction of the Shamkhor hydro development on the Kura River

Conclusions

• 1. The assessment of the engineering-geological conditions given during geological substantiation of the project on the whole proved to be reliable, and the slight refinements during documentation of the pits did not lead to a fundamental revision of the design decisions.

• 2. The noted differences of the actual geological structure from the geological prediction are confined to the junctions of geomorphological elements — between the ancient floodplain and inselberg and between the left-bank projection and the modern floodplain and channel. Therefore it is recommended to explore such stretches with a denser network of workings.

• 3. At the Shamkhor site the detected presence of an ancient overdeepened channel filled with a thick stratum of gravel-pebble sediments, neotectonic activity, marked difference in the water content of the rocks on the left and right banks, low natural water content and high degree of slump-proneness of the left-bank loamy sand-loam cover are characteristic for the entire middle Kura valley and should be taken into account when making design decisions at the earliest stages of surveys.

• 4. Engineering-geological regionalization of the territory of the construction site was performed on the basis of morphology, geological structure, hydrogeological characteristics, tectonic and neotectonic occurrences, and physical and mechanical properties of the soils. This made it possible to successfully select the site for the structures of the diversion-service spillway and powerhouse, having laid out those of them that are the heaviest and most sensitive to nonuniform displacements on a single structural-tectonic block.

• 5. It is necessary to regard the Shamkhor hydro development as an analogue-object with respect to composition, volume, and direction of the surveys and investigations performed, and the results obtained during geological substantiation and documentation and of the research works can be used when designing the Enikend, Kirzan, and Alazan hydro developments located in this region.