April 2015 Technical Talk

BCGS April Technical Talk – Wednesday April 15, 2015

SPEAKER: Doug McConnell, P.Eng, P.Geoph, DMT Geosciences Ltd.

TITLE: Geophysicists are from Earth, Engineers are from Mars and other controversial theories: Risks related to misconceptions and limitations of engineering and environmental geophysics

DATE/TIME: Wednesday April 15, 2015 @ 4:30pm

LOCATION: Room 451, 409 Granville St (UK Building at Granville and Hastings), Vancouver

ABSTRACT: 

DMT has been specializing in geotechnical engineering, environmental and hydrogeological geophysics for 25 years. Geophysics is best presented to the engineer as a risk management tool to identify targets for drilling or other follow up investigation and not a silver bullet solution. Except in a few cases where geophysical results can be used directly in engineering formulas, there is often the need to make assumptions and provide guidance to deal with equivalence in geophysical results.

Working for engineers presents a unique set of communication, economic and technical challenges to the Geophysicist. One of the most significant is integration of geophysical results into geotechnical and other engineering projects. Of course we are not alone in this, the Geotechnical Engineer has similar problems communicating with the Civil Engineer, but that’s another story.

This presentation includes case histories to illustrate some of the challenges, pitfalls, and misconceptions of that work and how they can be overcome. The case histories present examples of multi-method geophysics studies integrating other geoscience data to minimize risk in directional drilling for pipelines, water inundation in surface mines, RQD determination and hazards from karst in construction projects.