Engineering and geological zoning based on electrophysical characteristics of coal-bearing sedimentary rocks in Southern Yakutia for urban planning purposes in the city of Neryungri

The purpose of the conducted research is to solve a typical problem of engineering and geological zoning of the territory of the city of Neryungri based on the complex of effective values of electrophysical characteristics of coal-bearing sedimentary rocks, with the identification of areas favorable and unfavorable for the construction and operation of engineering structures. A zoning solution was derived from remote inductive sounding data using factor analysis (principal component method). The study resulted in the identification of six factors: decompaction, lithology, lithogenic fracturing, tectonic fracturing, material properties (clay content vs. ice content), and temperature. The former (decompaction and lithology) are referred to the main factors with the total contribution to the variance (energy) of variability of electrophysical characteristics equal to 55.53%. They have a significant impact on the attenuation of the harmonic electromagnetic field at the frequencies of 1.125 and 0.281 MHz, as well as on the electrical resistivity and the real part of the complex dielectric permittivity at the frequency of 0.281 MHz. Fracturing factors with the total contribution of 33.05% affect only the anisotropy characteristics (coefficient and azimuth). Based on the complex mean value calculated after weighted summation of all factors, a layout of the above-mentioned zoning was constructed, in which areas with favorable and unfavorable conditions have been distributed over the area with equal probability. Factor analysis provides a mathematically rigorous and substantively sound supplement and elaboration to engineering-geological survey data regarding the complex, heterogeneous tectonic and exogenous-cryogenic structure, as well as the pronounced spatial variability in the strength and moisture-temperature conditions of frozen, unfrozen, and technogenic-anthropogenic thawed coal-bearing sedimentary rocks in the studied central part of the city of Neryungri.

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