A Pre-Study to the Relationship Between Geotechnical Properties and Geological Structure of Clay Levels in Bardak？？ (Van) Region

The Bardak？？ region, located on the east coast of Lake Van, is in a zone under the influence of the Van Lake water changes and the Van fault, which produced earthquakes in 2011. In this region, because of the level changes of Lake Van, sediments with different thicknesses and different grain sizes were deposited. Thicknesses and grain sizes of these sediments may vary depending on the morphology and water movements in the period they occured. There are many soil drilling studies in the study area in the previous period. In this study, six new soil drillings were made in order to determine the mechanical properties of clays in the region. In these drillings, undisturbed (UD) samples were taken at different depths and cohesion, internal friction angles of clay levels were determined on these samples. These mechanical properties were then associated with the geological history of the region with the finding that the cohesion value of same type of soils are different. The results indicate that changes in cohesion values may be due to tectonism and / or bio-geochemical events took place in this region