This one is going to be a little controversial.  A colleague and I were talking about threats to the industry a couple of months back, and another professional had also brought this up some time back whereby the engineering community were stipulating that geotechnical investigations had to carried out by a Geotechnical Engineer.  Or at least signed off by them.  And a month ago I was asked to quote on a job, with exactly those same criteria.

Perhaps the Engineers were right

This is disturbing to say the least and I was pretty fed up, and so I began to wonder why this stipulation was being applied.  And after giving it some additional thought I concluded that perhaps the Engineers were right.  Almost by way of confirmation, a day or two later I received another SAIEG  email advertising the next soil and rock logging course which really made my blood boil.

I do not believe

Do we really have such a low opinion of ourselves that we think that we can teach everyone how to identify rocks and soils in a 1-day seminar?  If I remember, we spent four years at university identifying rocks, mostly by peering down a microscope to determine the mineralogy thereof.  I know that Engineers don’t need to know if a rock is a hypersthene granite or a dunite, but I do not believe that these skills, even for basic rock identification, can be imparted in a day. 

We slaved away in the soils laboratory

But that is almost an aside to what I really have to say.  Many years ago, I signed up for an M.Sc. degree at a British ‘red brick’ university.  The course was open to Engineers and Geologists alike, with the aim of producing geotechnical professionals.  We slaved away in the soils laboratory carrying triaxial tests, shear box tests and oedometer tests. 

They were gods in the Pantheon of Geotechnics

In the rock engineering laboratory, we carried out UCS tests, point load tests, triaxial tests, Brazilian tensile strength tests and every other test they could think of. We ran XRF analyses on clays to determine their mineralogy. Mohr circles were plotted, shear strength parameters arrived at, stability of slopes calculated. Settlement, ultimate bearing capacity, factors of safety, hydrogeology, tunnelling, dams and flow nets were part of our daily lexicon. Hoek and Bray, Bieniawski and Barton were gods in the Pantheon of Geotechnics, and we the humble acolytes able only to pay homage by passing our exams.

It makes me extremely acid

When we walked out of that course we knew a shed load about rock mechanics and soil mechanics.  So it makes me extremely acid when the RFQ implies that I am not qualified to do the work, and that a geotechnical Engineer must sign it off. But is this surprising when all that we, the engineering geology community, can come up with is a course on rock and soil identification?   Or that people are working in the profession without any formal geotechnical qualifications?

Where is the hard work and discipline of sitting late at night?

We need to raise our game.  Four-year degrees in pure geology do not prepare us for a career in engineering geology.  Yes, we can muddle our way through and learn things along the way, but where is the hard work and discipline of sitting late at night wrestling with 3-dimensional stress and strain, or the subtleties of the Coulomb-Navier criterion?  This depth and breadth of knowledge can only be acquired, in my opinion, but sitting at the knee of some great teachers, and by putting in the long hours to get to grips with the subject material.

Now this is pure geology at its best

That said, I have in front of me a publication titled “Petrology and Durability of Basalts”, which was put together by the Olivier Shand Consortium which has a grand history dating back to the early days of the Lesotho Highlands Project. Now this is pure geology - in fact petrography - at its best, with discussions on mineral content, devitrification, montmorillonite, tholeiitic basalts and so on for several hundred pages.  Geologists all, this is where we shine, but let us not lose sight of the fact that it was compiled in the light of the engineering that had to be carried out to build the dams and tunnels of Phase 1 of the LHWP. 

We have duty of care

So we walk this path between pure geology and engineering.  We have duty of care to acquire the skills to do our jobs properly to enable us to provide enough information on the soil and rock characteristics to allow the Engineer to confidently design a structure, whether this is the undrained shear strength of a clay or the durability of basaltic lavas through which a tunnel is to be bored.  But if we don’t raise our game we shall be side-lined.  (That said, it would also be useful to have reasonable budgets from the Engineers to go out and determine those characteristics, rather than the current race for the bottom which is also not assisting in keeping standards high.) 

So let us rather run courses on reliably acquiring shear strength parameters of a soil, the RMR system, the Q System, or rock joint deformation under varying normal stress, or some such which. 

Have we, the so-called engineering geologists, killed our profession?

But the big question still needs an answer – have we, the so-called engineering geologists, killed our profession?  I shall leave it there, for my 800 words are up. But boiling blood and acidity are not a great combination.

Do have a very grand day.  I look forward to your feedback.