Diatomaceous Soils and Advances in Geotechnical Engineering—Part I

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents an extensive literature review on the Diatomaceous soils (DS). The current work highlights the comparison of the mechanical, physical and geometrical properties of the known type of DS. Clear is the message on how emerging is the research on this soil type and on the importance of pursuing any type of investigation on it. 

Although the paper is very well structured and detailed, there are few points that need to be addressed in order to be clearer towards a broad audience.

Line 74 Some "excessive differential settlements" are mentioned. What is the order of magnitude of such differential settlement?

Line 76 SEM images are mentioned. The authors should add few SEM images to show the readers the diatom structure, and the scale of them. Nowhere in the text SEM images are presented. In the abstract the DS surface is defined as rough, What is the parameter used to define this roughness? Perhaps a SEM image, can explain it.

Line 84 Cc and Cs are mentioned here for the first time. Nowhere else in the text they are defined as - what I assume being -  compression and recompression indexes.

Line 216 Add reference related to the link between diatomaceous and submarine landslides.

Section 2.1 Add a paragraph explaning how/ why the subsurface of the study areas mentioned (e.g., Osaka, Bogota) have such a large quantity of Diatoms.

Line 763. Add references on the properties values of Kaolin. 

Figure 13. Why are the data plotted in two separated graphs? Having all the data together will directly give the comparison. Perhaps, the authors can put the data in the same plot, and make different zooms, in the area of main interest.

Discussion: I believe it is missing the message of the authors. What is the line of research the authors think is important to pursue? Which main aspects needs to be addressed with high priority?

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript is well written. Diatomite and diatomaceous earth indeed are not clearly distinguished in many published works. This mainly due to the unfamiliarity of scientists in the details. This manuscript is providing an excellent explanation. 

I recommend that the authors in this manuscript also consider the terms "clayey diatomite" and "clayey diatomaceous earth".  Also, the authors could add a new table pertaining to the diatomite-diatomaceous earth differences and similarities (physical, chemical, microscopic etc.). 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Journal: CivilEng

Manuscript ID: civileng-2039136

Title Assessment of Infrastructure Reliability in Expansive Clays using Bayesian Belief Network

 

 

Reviewer #1

1)      Please rewrite the sentences;

[8] clarify that, although the potential effect of microfossils in marine or lacustrine sediments has been documented, the records are limited to reporting variation in aspects such as cohesion or shear strength angle, but do not delve into the explanation or origin of the differential behavior.

2)      Please increase the quality of the figures

3)      Add a reference to the end of the sentence for all sentences.

 

 In Bogota (Colombia), there have been cases of buildings with optimum performance in service of 30 to 50 years, but after this period, they began to present excessive differential settlements that exceeded the permissible limits; this phenomenon is previously associated with secondary consolidation processes….

Author Response

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