LOESSFEST'09 | Aug. 31st – Sept. 3rd, 2009 |Novi Sad-Serbia
Heavy Loess-Wall Movements at Danube River in Dunaszekcső (Hungary)
Chikán, G.1
1Geological Institute of Hungary, 1143 Budapest, Stefánia út 14. Hungary
In Europe along the Danube River we have many interesting and valuable outcrops of Quaternary loess. In 2007 year began a common Croatian-Hungarian project, supported by S&T Foundation of Hungary and Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports for correlation loess/paleosoil sequences of Southeast Transdanubia and East Croatia. In this project we have investigated some outcrops of loess in Hungary and in Croatia too, from Dunaföldvár (H) to Ilok (Cr).
There are many good and nice outcrops on the right shore of Danube river, which very often rich the 25 m tallness. These outcrops have in general 3-5 paleosoil- layers, and close to the average level of the river they have different underlying sediments: Pleistocene fluvial sand, residual clay, Pontian (Pannonian) clay. These sections are very important for understanding of development of Pannonian Basin. Many of them are stable, but some of them are in dangerous position, because of surface movement processes.
Heavy movements have begun on the end of November 2007 at one of the most important Hungarian section, the Dunaszekcső profile, which is under strict natural protection. One part of the river wall slowly but definitely started towards the Danube. The expert said that the movement is unstoppable, and the time of sliding of the main mass is depending on the amount of precipitation and the hardness of winter. They had right: on the middle of February 2008 more than 300 000 m3 loess was broken away, and some of there standing houses were heavily damaged.
The place of landslide, the Várhegy (Castle-hill) is protected partly because of well-outcropped loess-section, partly the archaeological remains from the Roman Empire’s time. Both of these values were damaged by landslide.
The possible protection is the building of an artificial baffle against the water (as it seems to be working at Vukovar, Gorjanović Profile).
We have planned some geological and geophysical investigations to determine of the nature of movement, but we couldn’t get any financial support till now.