Architectural Geology of Segovia, Spain, Part 5: The Segovia Aqueduct (ca. early 2nd Century AD)
Taken from the high viewing perch on the eastern side of the Aqueduct. Facing south.
In this image we're looking upstream, so to speak, and toward the water's distant source. The high ground in the back, accessed by the broad set of steps, is the Plaza de Dia Sanz. There a single-arcade Aqueduct makes a 45-degree turn into a swale where it becomes a much more impressive, double arcade structure.
Up there on the hill the Roman architects had the firm bedrock footing of Variscan (Late Palezoic) aplitic granite the same age as the Guadrarrama Granite they used for the Aqueduct itself. But in the low area, where the bridge piers and arches they carry weigh the most, they had to deal with softer, Upper Cretaceous sandstone instead.
As I noted in a previous description of this series, the foundation engineers who tackled that problem clearly knew what they were doing. There they carefully excavated socketlike pits into the substrate to give the piers more secure anchorage.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Architectural Geology of Segovia album.
Architectural Geology of Segovia, Spain, Part 5: The Segovia Aqueduct (ca. early 2nd Century AD)
Taken from the high viewing perch on the eastern side of the Aqueduct. Facing south.
In this image we're looking upstream, so to speak, and toward the water's distant source. The high ground in the back, accessed by the broad set of steps, is the Plaza de Dia Sanz. There a single-arcade Aqueduct makes a 45-degree turn into a swale where it becomes a much more impressive, double arcade structure.
Up there on the hill the Roman architects had the firm bedrock footing of Variscan (Late Palezoic) aplitic granite the same age as the Guadrarrama Granite they used for the Aqueduct itself. But in the low area, where the bridge piers and arches they carry weigh the most, they had to deal with softer, Upper Cretaceous sandstone instead.
As I noted in a previous description of this series, the foundation engineers who tackled that problem clearly knew what they were doing. There they carefully excavated socketlike pits into the substrate to give the piers more secure anchorage.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Architectural Geology of Segovia album.