The Negev Lab

Sediment shear strength, its ability to resist gravitational stress is a critical component in slope stability, preventing surficial sediments remobilization or deeper failure and the onset of a submarine landslide. Therefore, understanding how post-burial processes as early diagenesis can change the shear strength (increasing or decreasing is important to evaluate the extent of surficial sediment remobilization and in the long term may potentially act as a weak layer promoting failure. the presence of buried organic material and the possible products of the ensuing early diagenesis processes could influence the mechanical strength of the sediments. Organic carbon burial and preservation in marine sediments controls the redox chemistry of pore waters and thereby affects the overall diagenetic processes. During the early diagenesis, However, little is known about the interaction between the microbial respiration process products. This is true in particular during sulfate and iron reduction in which remineralization occurs. We use a chemo-mechanical approach in which early diagenesis is reproduced in marine sediments in the lab and followed by geochemical and geotechnical analysis. One the one hand we will characterize the remineralization by following the change in pore water and on the other hand we will characterize the change to the microstructure qualitatively by SEM imaging and quantitively by mechanical analysis in collaborative laboratories.

 

by Dr. Hadar Elyashiv