Borehole sampling of surficial sediments in Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland

From 2014 to 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Florence Bascom Geoscience Center (FBGC) entered into an inter-agency agreement with the Federal Highway Administration’s Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) to assist in field site selection and auger drilling fieldwork. The TFHRC was developing a device to measure the erosional properties of clay-rich sediments to be used for in situ testing at locations of bridge pier construction. FBGC scientists selected 15 drilling locations at 14 different field sites across Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland for the investigation of near-surface sediment properties and the development and testing of the TFHRC’s in situ scour testing device (ISTD). This report provides information about the project and summarizes the data collected during fieldwork including sediment descriptions of the borehole cores and the methods used during fieldwork.