bodenkörper

Bodenkörper is a German term that translates roughly to “ground body” and is used in some geoscience and engineering texts to denote a defined volume of earth material—soil, sediment, or rock—that constitutes a part of the subsurface. It is a descriptive, rather than a formal, term and does not refer to a single standard classification.

A bodenkörper is described by its spatial extent and its properties. Key characteristics include mineral composition, grain size distribution, porosity, density, moisture content, and temperature. Mechanical properties such as stiffness, strength, compressibility, and shear resistance determine how the body behaves under loads. The material’s position within a stratigraphic sequence and its hydrogeological state (pore water pressure, saturation) are also relevant.

In practice, the concept is used in site investigations, geotechnical modeling, and interpretations of soils and rocks. For example, a geotechnical engineer may define a bodenkörper as the volume of soil or rock inspected or modeled in a specific analysis, potentially spanning from a small laboratory sample to a larger in-situ block.

The term emphasizes the spatial dimension of the material rather than its composition alone. Because bodenkörper is not a fixed term with strict formal usage, more precise terms such as Bodenprobe (soil sample), Gesteinskörper (rock body), or Bodenschicht (soil layer) may be used in technical writing.