Chatham-Kent sits on thick glacial till and clay plains left by the Laurentide Ice Sheet, with the Thames River carving through soft lacustrine deposits. These layers create a tricky profile for any excavation or fill project. We have seen retaining walls shift and road shoulders slump when the clay gets wet. That is why a proper slope stability analysis matters here. We combine field data from boreholes with laboratory strength tests to model failure surfaces. Before starting your cut or fill, you should pair this analysis with a study of bearing capacity to confirm the foundation can handle the load. The local clay can lose strength quickly after heavy rain, so we run undrained scenarios for short-term conditions and drained for long-term. Our team has reviewed dozens of slopes along Highway 401 and local municipal drains.
Clay in Chatham-Kent loses up to 60 percent of its undrained strength when saturated – this drives our worst-case analysis for every slope.