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I would disagree that colour is of limited use in contamination assessment.

A decade or so ago I was preparing a remediation plan for a site. The made ground had variable contaminant levels with occasional apparently random GAC exceedances (which however were not calculated to be statistical outliers) for one of the metals (don’t remember which !)

Fortunately the trial pits had been properly logged by a geotechnical engineer and there was an apparent correlation between the exceedances and a light grey coloured soil.

We used the colour of the material as an indicator during delineation sampling which confirmed that the grey colour was associated with the exceedances and were able to base the remediation plan on selective excavation of the grey soil.

I recall that this enabled a significant reduction in volumes and costs.



Regards

Frank Westcott

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On 9 Jul 2018, at 19:50, Marc Fawcett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Fully agree with you Chris.

I’ve yet to find a site where colour has come in useful expect for the obvious ones like dye works / gas works. But simple descriptions would work in these situations.

Yes if it’s bright fluorescent purple it’s probably an indication that it’s different - than that brown soil next to it... but useful for anything else than that?... probably not.... 

Sometimes people think too much. 

From experience you’re better looking at changes in vegetation type and colours to indicate contaminates likely location and spread - then dig it up and test it!


 

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On 9 Jul 2018, at 17:56, Chris Eccles <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I would disagree with using Munsell colour charts as the choice of the colours is somewhat subjective and not helpful to contamination assessment.  Deciding which of the 325 colours in the charts takes a lot of time for limited or no benefit.  The cost of these charts is relatively high for what I believe is a hindrance to people doing soil description.  Who knows what" Gley 8/5G" means and what difference is that to "Gley 6/10Y" or "5YR 5/8"?  I recommend just sticking to the colours in BS5930:2015 (plus cream and orange) as there are plenty to choose from.  If you want a colour chart use the colour chart on David Norbury's Website which are the Pantone colours used by professional printers, see

http://drnorbury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Colour-Chart.pdf

Colours can be indicative of contamination but most of the time there is no link from colour to contaminants other than the relatively common hydrocarbon contamination or if you are in Widnes (and parts of Glasgow etc) the cream and yellowish brown colours can be Galligu.  Bright colours and unusual colours can be indicators of contamination so you can add another sentence after the main description to add additional information if you think it is helpful.  Unusual colours observed are usually not indicative of a specific contaminant as there is often a cocktail of different natural materials and anthropogenic materials present.

Oh, "Gley 6/10Y" is known to me as "grey" and "5YR 5/8" is "orangish brown."

Regards

Chris Eccles
Director
TerraConsult Ltd
01925 291111

-----Original Message-----
From: Contaminated Land Management Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Philip Wilson
Sent: 09 July 2018 16:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Soil colours

Use a Munsell colour chart to avoid ambiguity ??

http://drnorbury.co.uk/soil-and-rock-description-in-engineering-practice/field-guidance-tables-for-soil-and-rock-description



Phil Wilson

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-----Original Message-----
From: Contaminated Land Management Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sophia Norfolk
Sent: 05 July 2018 12:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Soil colours

Dear all,

Thank you to those who have recently taken part in my questionnaire - the results are very interesting!

I've been working through some of the questions and many of you have said that describing colour is difficult during logging. As part of my research to standardise colours, I have been researching different colours that can be present within soils. If anyone has encountered interesting or unnatural colours within soils during a ground investigation due to contamination or other sources and knows what has caused the colour, I'd be very interested in including it in my project.  Any pictures you have will also be very helpful.


Kind regards,

Sophia

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