Name Hamza Ashfaq

CE-20114
Geology assignment
Miss Sadaf
Importance of geology in civil engineering

NED University of Engineering and Technology

Karachi
Introduction:
Geology provides a systematic study of the structure and properties of
construction materials and their occurrence. The civil engineers need to know the
properties of rocks accurately to enable them to consider different rocks for any
required purpose that is as a foundation rock, as road metal, as concrete
aggregate, as building stones, as the roofing material for decorative purpose.
The selection of a site is important from the viewpoint of stability of foundation
and availability of construction materials. Geology provides knowledge about the
site used in the construction of buildings, dams, tunnels, tanks, reservoirs,
highways and bridges.
Geology helps to identify area susceptible to failures due to geological hazards
such as earthquake, landslides, weathering effects, etc.
The knowledge about the nature of the rocks is very necessary for tunnelling,
constructing roads and in determining the stability of cuts and slopes.
The foundation problems of dams, bridges and buildings are directly related to
the geology of the area where they are to be built.
The knowledge of groundwater is necessary for connection with excavation
works, water supply, irrigation and many other purposes. Hydrological maps
provide information about the distribution of surface water channels and the
groundwater depth.
Geological maps help in planning civil engineering projects. It provides
information about the structural deposition of rock types in the proposed area.
Geology helps in determining the earthquake-prone areas. If any geological
features like faults, folds, etc. are found, they have to be suitably treated to
increase the stability of the structure.
The knowledge of erosion, transportation and deposition (ETD) by surface water
helps soil conservation, river control, coastal and harbors works.
A geological survey of a site before starting a project will reduce the overall cost.
These are the reasons; civil engineering students are taught geology in their
curriculum. It illustrates the importance of geology in civil engineering.
Role of the engineer in the systematic exploration of a
site:
The investigation of the suitability and characteristics of sites as they affect the
design and construction of civil engineering works and the security of neighboring
structures is laid out in British Standard Code of Practice for site investigations (BS
5930:1981, formerly CP 2001). The sections on geology and site exploration
define the minimum that a professional engineer should know. The systematic
exploration and investigation of a new site may involve five stages of procedure.
These stages are:
Preliminary investigation using published information and other existing data;
A detailed geological survey of the site, possibly with a photogeology study;
Applied geophysical surveys to provide information about the subsurface geology;
Boring, drilling and excavation to provide confirmation of the previous results,
and quantitative detail, at critical points on the site; and
Testing of soils and rocks to assess their suitability, particularly their mechanical
properties (soil mechanics and rock mechanics), either in situ or from samples.
In a major engineering project, each of these stages might be carried out and
reported on by a consultant specializing in geology, geophysics or engineering
(with a detailed knowledge of soil or rock mechanics). However, even where the
services of a specialist consultant are employed, an engineer will have overall
supervision and responsibility for the project. The engineer must therefore have
enough understanding of geology to know how and when to use the expert
knowledge of consultants, and to be able to read their reports intelligently, judge
their reliability, and appreciate how the conditions described might affect the
project. In some cases the engineer can recognise common rock types and simple
geological structures, and knows where he can obtain geological information for
his preliminary investigation. When reading reports, or studying geological maps,
he must have a complete understanding of the meaning of geological terms and
be able to grasp geological concepts and arguments. For example, a site described
in a geological report as being underlain by clastic sedimentary rocks might be
considered by a civil engineer to consist entirely of sandstones. However, clastic
sedimentary rocks include a variety of different rock types, such as
conglomerates, sandstones and shales or mudstones. Indeed it would not be
unusual to find that the site under development contained sequences of some of
these different rock types—say, intercalated beds of sandstone and shale, or
sandstone with conglomerate layers. Each of these rock types has different
engineering properties, which could affect many aspects of the development
work such as core drilling into, and excavation of, the rock mass, and deep piling
into the
Underlying strata.
The systematic testing of the engineering properties of soils and rocks lies
between classical geology and the older disciplines of engineering, such as
structures. It has attracted the interest of, and contributions from, people with a
first training in either geology or engineering, but has developed largely within
departments of civil and mining engineering and is usually taught by staff there.
These tests, and the advice about design or remedial treatment arising from
them, are more naturally the province of the engineer, and fall largely outside the
scope of this book. The reasons for this lie in the traditional habits and practices
of both fields. The engineer’s training gives him a firm grounding in expressing his
conclusions and decisions in figures, and in conforming to a code of practice. He
also has an understanding of the constructional stage of engineering projects, and
can better assess the relevance of his results to the actual problem.
These reasons for the traditional divisions of practice between geology and
engineering must be qualified, however, by mentioning important developments
during the last decade. An upsurge of undergraduate and postgraduate courses,
specialist publications and services in engineering geology, initiated or sponsored
by departments of geology or by bodies such as the Geological Society of London,
has reflected an awakened interest in meeting fully the geological needs of
engineers and in closing the gaps that exist between the two disciplines.
Relevance of geology to civil engineering:
Most civil engineering projects involve some excavation of soils and rocks, or
involve loading the Earth by building on it. In some cases, the excavated rocks
may be used as constructional material, and in others, rocks may form a major
part of the finished product, such as a motorway cutting or the site f or a
reservoir. The feasibility, the planning and design, the construction and costing,
and the safety of a project may depend critically on the geological conditions
where the construction will take place. This is especially the case in extended
‘greenfield’ sites, where the area affected by the project stretches for kilometres,
across comparatively undeveloped ground. Examples include the Channel Tunnel
project and the construction of motorways. In a section of the M9 motorway
linking Edinburgh and Stirling that crosses abandoned oil-shale workings,
realignment of the road, on the advice of government geologists, led to a
substantial saving. In modest projects, or in those involving the redevelopment of
a limited site, the demands on the geological knowledge of the engineer or the
need for geological advice will be less, but are never negligible. Site investigation
by boring and by testing samples may be an adequate preliminary to construction
in such cases.

The science of geology:

Geology is the study of the solid Earth. It includes the investigation of the rocks
forming the Earth (petrology) and of how they are distributed (their structure),
and their constituents (mineralogy and crystallography). Geochemistry is a study
of the chemistry of rocks and the distribution of major and trace elements in
rocks, rock suites, and minerals. This can lead to an understanding of how a
particular rock has originated (petro genesis), and also, in the broadest sense, to a
knowledge of the chemistry of the upper layers of the Earth.

The distribution of rocks at the Earth’s surface is found by making a geological

survey (that is, by geological mapping) and is recorded on geological maps. This
information about rocks is superimposed on a topographic base map. Knowledge
of the nature and physical conditions of the deeper levels of the planet can be
gained only by the special methods of geophysics, the twin science of geology; the
term ‘Earth sciences’ embraces both. From the theory and methods of
geophysics, a set of techniques (applied geophysics) has been evolved for
exploring the distribution of rocks of shallower levels where the interests of
geologists and geophysicists are most intertwined.
Knowledge of the Earth at the present time raises questions about the processes
that have formed it in the past: that is, about its history. The interpretation of
rock layers as Earth history is called stratigraphy, and a study of the processes
leading to the formation of sedimentary rocks is called sedimentology. The study
of fossils (paleontology) is closely linked to Earth history, and from both has come
the understanding of the development of life on our planet. The insight thus
gained, into expanses of time stretching back over thousands of millions of years,
into the origins of life and into the evolution of man, is geology’s main
contribution to scientific philosophy and to the ideas of educated men and
women.