WEATHERING FORMS AND DAMAGE CATEGORIES OF SOME EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES BASED ON FIELD MEASUREMENTS. A STUDY IN APPLIED CLIMATE
WEATHERING FORMS AND DAMAGE CATEGORIES OF SOME EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES BASED ON FIELD MEASUREMENTS. A STUDY IN APPLIED CLIMATE

Summary/Abstract: It is widely known, that all stones eventually change due to their interaction with various climatic conditions. Thus, similarly as the weathering processes occur at the Earth's natural surfaces, they also affect man-made monuments. Weathering processes are acting physically, chemically and/or biologically on a given material based on material's properties, its geographic orientation and intensity of the pre-dominant weathering process. The aim of the current study is to find out the distribution of rock's damage categories on the wall sides of the sites under investigation. Examining rock properties including its petrography, mineralogy, petrophysical and mechanical properties on one hand; and defining the damage category of some wall sides of the sites under investigation. The field study was complemented with laboratory analyses for a number of rock samples selected from areas with representative weathering patterns and damage categories of all the of archeological sites. Sixteen samples were examined by polarizing microscopy (PLM), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray analysis system (SEM-EDX). From the current study is has been determined that, most of archeological sites El-Kharga Oasis has reached a severe damage category based on field investigations and Laboratory study.

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