Geocharacterisation of the “Tepetates”

Abstract

Tepetate formations are generally found in regions where climate presents a very well-defined dry season. The original materials are basically pyroclastic projections under rain or flood shapes. Tepetates are indurated earthy materials from Mexico that have been reported with different names in different countries. These materials have been subject of investigation by very different areas such as geology and edaphology related to their origin, constitution, minerals and location, and also to the agronomy focusing in its improvement and incorporation as a fertile soil. This material has also been used as an earthen structure like embankments for pavements and residential flooring and as a substitution material for problematic soil such as the expansive clays without serious studies that validate its behaviour. In this article, there appears a research work of the behaviour of the tepetates as earthen structures. We concluded that those methodologies in this study create a new material completely different from the original (indurated). Moreover, the types of cement in the tepetates have different behaviours. The lack of tepetate characterisation in the mentioned applications is contributing to create an image of a relatively homogeneous material, which can occasionally be the case but is not a generality.

Keywords:

• tepetates
• volcanic soil
• indurated material
• characterisation
• embankment