Geological education for undergraduate civil engineers

Abstract

I would like to offer the following comment, for publication. Most Civil Engineering Departments provide for a service course to be given by a Geology Department early in the civil engineers training with a view to teaching the elements of geology and it is fitting that such a course should be given by a geology department who are best able to introduce their subject. This is geology for engineers, not engineering geology and forms a useful introduction to soil mechanics which should follow. Applications such as site investigation, problems with dams, water, foundations etc. should be left until late in the course when they can be appreciated and should only be given by those staff members who have some real training or experience in these matters. One is often irked by an attitude sometimes shown by geologists that geology has something to offer civil engineering (which it has) but civil engineering has nothing to offer geology. Until geologists as a part of their training take some courses in soil mechanics, rock mechanics and fluid mechanics, which are available in civil engineering departments we will tend to have geologists who say ‘what do the engineers want?’ I would also deprecate an attitude which regards an engineering geologist as a ‘middle man’, rather engineering geology is a subject in its own right which should develop its own theory and expertise in the same way that soil mechanics has been developed. In conclusion the paper is interesting as it shows an awareness of