Petrological study and Provenance estimation on the stone materials from the Jeolla Usuyeong Rampart, the Republic of Korea

Abstract

We investigated the petrological features of the stone materials used in the Jeolla Usuyeong rampart and estimated their provenance through the geological survey. The Jeolla Usuyeong was designated as a historic site (No. 535) on 2016. Since the remaining rampart is less than 15%, it is necessary to make conservation on it. In this study, we discriminated the stone materials used for the rampart according to their petrographic characteristics and estimated the volume proportion of each stone by the rock type. Also, we measured the whole-rock magnetic susceptibility. The petrographic features of the stones in the rampart were compared with those in the vicinity by their mineral composition and texture. The stone materials of the rampart mainly consist of the tuff, lapilli tuff, and lapilli stone. Among these three kinds of rocks, lapilli tuff is quantitatively the most abundant (60.3%), the next is tuff (34.7%), and lapilli stone (2.5%) shows the least amount. The whole-rock magnetic susceptibility of the tuffaceous rocks can be divided by the value of 1.0810 3 SI unit. Also, the compressive strength of tuff exhibits about 156 MPa, which is adequate to reuse for the repairing work. Petrological comparisons between stone materials and outcrop rocks distributed around the Hwawon peninsula leads to a conclusion that the stone materials of the rampart are likely to have been delivered from the Dongoeri and Sindeok-ri. Judging from the results of the comparison on the frequency of use and physical properties among the tuffaceous rocks, tuff is considered to suitable for restoring the rampart.