Integrated geological-architectural pilot study of the Biet Gabriel-Rufael rock hewn church in Lalibela, northern Ethiopia

Italian Journal of Geosciences

Volumn 131, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 171-186

  Sani, Federico ^a,b   Moratti, Giovanna ^b   Coli, Massimo ^a   Laureano, Pietro ^c   Rovero, Luisa ^a   Tonietti, Ugo ^a   Coli, Niccolò ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE   (Italy)

^b SEZIONE DI FIRENZE   (Italy)

^c IPOGEA   (Italy)

^d UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA   (Italy)

Author keywords

Biet Gabriel Rufael church; Ethiopia; Fracture systems; Geo mechanical analysis; Lalibela; Rock hewn monuments; UNESCO World Heritage

Indexed keywords

EID: 84863209676     PISSN: 20381719     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3301/IJG.2011.26     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. ACEL-SAVA (1997) - Geology and engineering geology of Lalibela Churches (restricted).
2. ASRAT A. & AYALLEW Y. (2011) - Geological and geotechnical properties of the medieval rock hewn churches of Lalibela, Northern Ethiopia. J. Afr. Earth Sci., 59, 61-73.
3. AYALEW D., YIRGU G. & PIK R. (1999) - Geochemical and isotopic (Sr, Nd and Pb) characteristics of volcanic rocks from southwestern Ethiopia. J. Afr. Earth Sci., 29, 381-391. (Pubitemid 30105244)
4. AYELE A., JACQUES E., KASSIM M., KIDANE T., OMAR A., TAIT S., NERCESSIAN A., DE CHABALIER J.-B. & KING G. (2007) - The volcano-seismic crisis in Afar, Ethiopia, starting September 2005. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 255, 187-97.
5. BARTON N.R. & BANDIS S.C. (1990) - Review of predictive capabilites of JRC-JCS model in engineering practice. In: Barton N. & Stephansson O. (eds.), Rock joints. Proc. Int. Symp. on Rock joints, Loen, Norway, 603-610, Balkema, Rotterdam.
6. BAKER J., SNEE L. & MENZIES M. (1996) - A brief Oligocene period of flood volcanism in Yemen: implications for the duration and rate of continental flood volcanism at the Afro-Arabian triple junction. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 138, 39-55.
7. BIENIAWSKI Z.T. (1989) - Engineering Rock Mass Classifications. John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York.
8. BUDGE E. (1928) - History of Ethiopia, Nubia and Abyssinia. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London.
9. CHAZOT G. & BERTRAND H. (1993) - Mantle sources and magmacontinental crust interaction during early Red Sea-Aden rifting in southern Yemen: elemental and Sr-Nd-Pb isotope evidence. J. Geophys. Res., 98, B2, 1819-1835. (Pubitemid 23390001)
10. CORTI G. (2009) - Continental rift evolution: From rift initiation to incipient break-up in the Main Ethiopian Rift, East Africa. Earth Science Reviews, 96, 1-53.
11. DELMONACO G., MARGOTTINI C. & SPIZZICHINO D. (2005) - Slope- Structure Stability Modeling for the Rock Hewn Church of Bet Aba Libanos in Lalibela (Ethiopia): Preliminary Results. Chapter 26. In: Sassa K., Fukuoka H., Wang F. & Wang G. (eds.), Land - slides-Risk Analysis and Sustainable Disaster Management. Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg. doi: 10.1007/3-540-28680-2, 213-218.
12. DELMONACO G., MARGOTTINI C. & SPIZZICHINO D. (2010) - Weathering processes, structural degradation and slope-structure stability of rock-hewn churches of Lalibela (Ethiopia). Geological Society, London, Engineering Geology Special Publications, 23, 131-147.
13. EBINGER C., AYELE A., KEIR D., ROWLAND J., YIRGU G., WRIGHT T., BELACHEW M. & HAMLING I. (2010) - Length and Timescales of Rift Faulting and Magma Intrusion: The Afar Rifting Cycle from 2005 to Present. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 38, 437-64.
14. GOUIN P. (1979) - Earthquake History of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Int. Dev. Res. Centre, Ottawa, Ont., 1979.
15. GOUJON E. (2009) - Ethiopia: lifting the mystery on rock churches "built by angels". AFP - Agence France - Presse, 2009, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gF8Y2i1OKTWpIt pAi47b8uxMC6FQ
16. HAYWARD N.J. & EBINGER C.J. (1996) - Variations in the along-axis segmentation of the Afar rift system. Tectonics, 15, 244-57.
17. HENZE P.B. (2000) - A history of Ethiopia. Layers of Time. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, London.
18. HOEK E., CARRANZA-TORRES C.T. & CORKUM B. (2002) - Hoek Brown failure criterion - 2002 edition, Proceedings of North American Rock Mechanics Society Meeting, Toronto, July 2002.
19. HOEK E. & DIEDERICHS M.S. (2006) - Empirical estimation of rock mass modulus. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci., 43, 203-215. (Pubitemid 43055522)
20. HOFMANN C., COURTILLOT V., FÉRAUD G., ROCHETTE P., YIRGU G., KETEFO E. & PIK R. (1997) - Timing of the Ethiopian flood basalt event and implications for plume birth and global change. Nature, 389, 838-841. (Pubitemid 27462975)
21. ICCROM (1978) - Documentation of the Architect Angelini, paragraph 2.4; Symposium on stone conservation, Lalibela, 5-11 April.
22. KEIR D., EBINGER C., STUART G., DALY E. & AYELE A. (2006) - Strain accommodation by magmatism and faulting as rifting proceeds to breakup: Seismicity of the northern Ethiopian rift. J. Geophys. Res., 111, B05314. doi: 10.1029/2005JB003748.
23. KIEFFER B., ARNDT N., LAPIERRE H., BASTIEN F., BOSCH D., PECHER A., YIRGU G., AYALEW D., WEIS D., JERRAM D.A., KELLER F. & MEUGNIOT C. (2004) - Flood and shield basalts from Ethiopia: Magmas from the African Superswell. J. Petrol., 45, 793-834. (Pubitemid 38550202)
24. LAUREANO P., Coord. (2008) - Conservation action plan for the rock hewn churches in Lalibela. Consulting agreement between WMF-UNESCO and IPOGEA, Final report, 2008, 107 pp.
25. MARINOS P.G. & HOEK E. (2000) - GSI: a geological friendly tool for rock mass strength estimation. Proceedings of the International Conference on Geotechnical & Geological Engineering (GeoEng 2000), Technomic Publishing Co. Inc., Melbourne, Australia, 1422-1440.
26. MENZIES M.A., BAKER J. & CHAZOT G. (2001) - Cenozoic plume evolution and flood basalts in Yemen: a key to understanding older examples. In: Ernst R.E. & Buchan K.L. (eds.), Mantle plumes: their identification through time. Geological Society of America Special Paper, 352, 23-36.
27. MERLA G., ABBATE E., AZZAROLI A., BRUNI P., CANUTI P., FAZZUOLI M., SAGRI M. & TACCONI P. (1973) - A geological map of Ethiopia and Somalia (1973) 1:2000000 and comment with a map of major landforms. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy, 1979.
28. MOHR P. & ZANETTIN B. (1988) - The Ethiopian flood basalt province. In: MacDougall J.D. (ed.), Continental Flood Basalts. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 63-110.
29. MOHR P. (1983) - Ethiopian flood basalt province. Nature, 303, 577-583.
30. PANKHURST R. (2001) - The Ethiopians: a History (Peoples of Africa). Wiley-Blackwell (new edition), London.
31. RENZULLI A., ANTONELLI F., MARGOTTINI C., SANTI P. & FRATINI F. (2011) - What kind of vulcanite the rock-hewn churches of the Lalibela UNESCO's world heritage site are made of? Journal of Cultural Heritage, 12, 227-235. doi: 10.1016/j.culher.2010.11.003.
32. SALVARANI R. (2006) - Una imitatio dei luoghi santi del XIII secolo nel cuore dell'altipiano etiopico: Lalibela. In: Genuini S. (ed.), Fedi a confronto - Ebrei, Cristiani e Musulmani fra X e XIII secolo. Edizioni Polistampa, Firenze, 2006, 79-114.
33. TAMRAT T. (1972) - Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
34. TEPRIN (2002) - Shelters for five churches in Lalibela project. Tender dossier: Geotechnical Survey Report (GR).
35. TONIETTI U., Coord. (2009) - UNESCO Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela World Heritage Site (Ethiopia) - Conservation Action Plan-Structural study - Pilot conservation project on the Rock Hewn Church of Gabriel Rufael in Lalibela. University of Florence Scientific Mission, Lalibela, Ethiopia, 29 November-8 December 2008 - Final report, 87 pp.
36. UKSTINS I.A., RENNE P.R., WOLFENDEN E., BAKER J., AYALEW D. & MENZIES M. (2002) - Matching conjugate volcanic rifted margins: 40Ar/39Ar chrono-stratigraphy of pre and syn-rift bimodal flood volcanism in Ethiopia and Yemen. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 198, 289-306. (Pubitemid 34630184)
37. ZANETTIN B. (1992) - Evolution of the Ethiopian Volcanic Province. Memorie Lincee Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, 1, 155-181.
38. ZANETTIN B. (1993) - On the evolution of the Ethiopian volcanic province. In: Abbate E., Sagri M. & Sassi F.P. (eds.), Geology and Mineral Resources of Somalia and Surrounding Regions. Istituto Agronomico per l'Oltremare, Firenze, Relazioni e Monografie Agrarie Subtropicali e Tropicali Nuova Serie, 113, 279-310.