To investigate geotechnical controls on erodibility of rocks in fluvial impact erosion, we raised a par-allel dataset of i) rock erodibility, using purpose designed erosion mills (Turowski et al., 2023a) including grain size distributions for the eroded material, and ii) rock properties such as compressive strength, indirect tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and Poisson’s ratio. In addition, we measured proxies for geotechnical parameters, including the Schmidt hammer rebound value, Mohs’ hardness, bulk density, and ultrasonic pulse velocities.

Samples were obtained with a water-cooled, 200 mm diamond core bit in Switzerland and southern Germany, either from in-situ bedrock or boulders. In total, 18 lithological units were sampled. For some units, we obtained several cores either to increase the usable length or the quality, or to sample local variations in lithological properties (e.g., the dominant grain size) or geometry (e.g., the core orientation with respect to bedding planes). Back in the workshop, cores were cut into discs of either ~5.5 cm or ~12 cm length, for erosion and geotechnical experiments, respectively, and further prepared depending on the needs for the specific measurement.