Effect of Salt Crystallization on Microfracture Properties of the Basalts Used in Diyarbakir City Walls, Turkey

2018-10-08
Dursun, Felat
Topal, Tamer
The Diyarbakır City Walls, which were recently added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, are among the most impressive surviving structures from ancient times. Basalt is the principal construction material employed in the City Walls. Like many other historical structures, the Diyarbakır City Walls are also suffering from stone deterioration. It is known that weathering is strongly related to the type, amount, dimension, orientation and density of cracks. The extending of cracks, for instance, increases stone's surface area and consequently leads to physical, chemical and biological weathering. This makes it important to conduct microfracture studies of rock materials. In this study, it is aimed to understand how salt crystallization affects the microfractures properties of the basalts used in Diyarbakır City Walls. The studies confirmed that olivine and pyroxene are the most vulnerable minerals with the highest number of microcracks.
XII. International Conference of ASMOSIA (Association for the Study of Marble Other Stones in Antiquity), 8 - 14 Ekim 2018

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Citation Formats
F. Dursun and T. Topal, “Effect of Salt Crystallization on Microfracture Properties of the Basalts Used in Diyarbakir City Walls, Turkey,” presented at the XII. International Conference of ASMOSIA (Association for the Study of Marble Other Stones in Antiquity), 8 - 14 Ekim 2018, İzmir, Türkiye, 2018, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/86336.