GeoZone - Applied Geology & Geotechnics

Just Graduated?

Well, the world is your oyster now, and it all depends on what you make of it. Remember knowledge is power and the more you have of the former the more confident, useful and marketable you will be. Often it is intimidating for the young rookie to go to site, meet clients, and having to ‘wing’ it on the odd occasion.

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The way to get around this is to read, read, read, get as much practical experience as possible, and perhaps more importantly, find yourself a mentor. Which might be hard, as mentoring is in often in short supply, particularly within some South African consultancies – and supposedly leading ones at that. However training takes time and immense amounts of energy, and with budget constraints and deadlines to meet it is understandable why this gets put on the back burner with most companies, However, without a mentoring programme in place you are going to struggle, so choose your firm carefully, get them to discuss this during the interview, and ask them to put this into your letter of appointment and then hold them to it. If you can’t manage this, or it all seems too assertive, then you are going to have to rely on the services of www.geozone.co.za.

Measuring up for Catch Fences, Chapman's Peak Drive

There is a shed load of literature out there on every geotechnical subject under the sun – the question is, which is relevant and which isn’t. Here at GeoZone I am trying to put what I think as relevant up on the site, plugging the gaps by putting readily available, practical stuff onto the site to give you the tools to do your job. There are guidelines for logging core, for running a test pit investigation, how to conduct percolation tests, dynamic cone penetrometer tests, slope stability, the significance of expansive clays, and foundation design to mention but a few. All this stuff is great in theory mind, but if you want some real, genuine, down to earth experience in soil and rock logging, geotechnical mapping and site investigations you should sign up for one of my field courses. You might even get your boss to pay for it. For dates for 2009 and 2010 courses, click here.

Feel free to browse around the site, visit the bookstore where I have put up some of the most useful publications on engineering geology, geotechnical engineering, rock mechanics and soil mechanics. There are also links on the site to the Rocscience website where there is some amazing software to be had. Rocscience is also the home to the world’s leading expert on rock mechanics; Dr Evert Hoek has posted a number of papers and books on rock mechanics. Of interest is that he hails from Zimbabwe and studied at the University of Cape Town.

Katse Dam, Lesotho Highlands

Under technical resources I will post all sorts of stuff as it comes available – course notes, pro forma sheets for field testing, papers, ideas, technical standards and specifications – perhaps a motley collection but useful nonetheless.

So good luck, bon voyage, and feel free to email me with suggestions, requests, and ideas – this is your website and I hope that it does us all proud and provides the geotechnical and applied geology industries with a useful tool.

Just Graduated?

GeoZone - Applied Geology & Geotechnics