CVEN3201: Engineering Geology and Applied Geotechnics

K.Douglas

Assignment 2015 Comments

Please find below some general comments on your geology assignment. These are in addition to
any specific comments on your assignments. You should compare the comments below to what
you submitted.
MARKING SYSTEM
The marking breakdown, in order, was: 10% each for the model, site description, intact rock
description; 30% for the defect mapping; and 40% for the fieldtrip. You will find a series of letters
on your assignment showing you how well you did in each section. The rating scale is below. I
then used these and the percentage splits to give your overall mark.
A - Excellent
B - Very good
C - Good
D - Fair
F - Very Poor/Not done
DISCUSSION
A general outline of what I was looking for and how well it was done (including common errors) is
given below for each section.
One general comment is that you need to try and be more definitive and careful in your use of
language. A lot of the assignments contained very loose or vague language. When describing
soils/rocks etc you should make sure that you use proper official descriptive terms (e.g. those
from the Australian Standard or other appropriate guidelines). For example, use proper weathering
terms like HW (highly weathered) or SW (slightly weathered) etc. rather than other general nonspecific/standard terms like very weathered or strongly weathered etc.
The assignments should have been written as reports. Although this was done by nearly all, there
were some issues with the format. The assignment submissions usually had a lot of figures.
Figures in a report should always have a Figure Number, Caption and Reference (if not your work)
in brackets. All figures should then be referred to in the body text of your document.
References should have been used throughout the document where you were citing others work.
You preferably should have used the Harvard referencing system with Author (year) in the body
text. This is much easier to follow that footnotes or numbered references etc. and allows the
reader to immediately know where the reference material came from.
Please remember to always include a scale in your figures when taking photos of geology. This
could be a tape open to 100mm or 1m or a geopick, hand etc. Photos can be very deceptive
without it.
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CVEN3201: Engineering Geology and Applied Geotechnics

K.Douglas

Bronte Defect Mapping

I divided this section into three parts: site description; preliminary model; and geotechnical
mapping (intact rock AND rock defects).
The site location was done reasonably well however, many of the site descriptions were limited. I
was looking for some indication of where your section was located (a map was useful), the general
nature of the site using comments and a detailed site plan to a good scale. Things to note
included: roads, rock exposure, cliff face near beach, slope angles/topography (including the road
and the surrounding land), heights, weather, etc. Some discussion of the surrounds of the site
should also have been made (rock, soil, trees/plants, water inflows, evidence of moisture,
engineered structures and their condition road, buildings etc.). All of these could have been
discussed AND put on your site plan. All plans/aerial photographs etc should include a title, scale,
north point, legend etc. It is important from an engineering viewpoint that you describe a site in full
and put as much detail on your site plan as possible. A look at nearby structures (including roads)
can give you some good clues as to any potential subsurface problems. For example: cracks in a
house or retaining wall may indicate shrink/swell soils, landsliding, loose or soft subsurface
soils/fill. A look at the plants and trees around the site may tell you where there may be
watercourses or seepage. Sloping trees may indicate ground movement. Old structures that are
undamaged may indicate stable conditions (for the foundation system used). You should be
specific about the location of any of these features (e.g. show on the site plan). Some groups used
the houses as an example to show that the rock had a high strength. Others said that the buildings
would cause defects in the sandstone. The stresses from the houses are very low compared to the
strength of the rock. Therefore nothing can really be derived from the houses with respect to the
rock. They are really only relevant to soils (if they exist under the footings). An example of another
thing that could be noted was that the seepage at the northern end of the rock cutting correlated
well with the poorer quality road surface (potholes/road repairs).
For the preliminary model I was looking for an indication that you had gathered different sources of
information together to create an educated guess as to what you may find at the site. Groups used
the 1:100,000 Sydney Geological map (most useful), the Sydney Soils map, topographic maps
and their general experience of Hawkesbury sandstone to come up with reasonable models. Some
groups used the 1:250,000 scale geology map. This is not as good as it doesnt give you as much
detailed information. You should make sure that you properly reference all the sources of
information both in figure captions and within your text. Many groups did not do this. Being near
the ocean it was not hard to estimate the approximate location of the water table. You should be
careful to make sure you locate your site properly on the maps. You should also limit your model
to your engineering project and the relevant zone around it you did not have to tell me what was
100s of meters below the excavation or on the other side of Sydney. Your model should have
included condition and depths of both the soil (minimal sand as erosion rate >> weathering rate for
Hawkesbury Sandstone on a cliff top) and the rock (including defects etc) and the location of the
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CVEN3201: Engineering Geology and Applied Geotechnics

K.Douglas

water table. Note that some cited a considerable amount of sand as there was some shown on the
map in the Bronte region. The sand indicated on the map was at Bronte Beach and other nearby
low lying areas not the cliff face. You need to be very specific when locating the site on the
geology map. Dykes should have been mentioned but you should also have noted that they were
not shown on the maps as being located specifically at the Bronte site and therefore were very
unlikely to be at the site. The section on the model should have finished with a summary expected
section that included all the details discussed. It was very important that this was drawn to (natural
1H:1V) scale with the scale provided.
For the intact rock description, I was looking for a description of the rock type, grain type and
shape and cement (for the sandstone), grain size (for the sandstone), strength and weathering
(using the correct formal terminology as given in the lecture notes/Australian Standard). Where
there was cross bedding within the intact rock, it should have been noted. If any of this varied for
your section you should have described/tabulated each zone separately. Some groups did this well
others did it poorly or not at all. Some were too general in their use of language and did not use
proper classification terms for intact strength and weathering (given in the lecture notes and the
Australian Standard for Site Investigations).
For the rock defects I was looking for a completed table showing the following features for each
defect (as given in the lecture notes): defect type, dip/dip direction, length, terminations, spacing,
shape, roughness, aperture (thickness), infill, wavelength and ILA and hydrological characteristics.
I was expecting up to about 20 defects separately mapped. Note that the defects were usually
bedding planes, joints and cross beds. There was one fault at the top (southern) end of the road.
You should remember when recording data that dip is given with two numbers 00 (maximum 90)
and dip direction with three numbers 000 (maximum 360). You should record data to the nearest
degree. Defects are naturally variable and you should not imply accuracy that does not exist.
Some groups gave the length of the bedding planes as the width of your assigned section. You
need to give the full length of the defect (say to the nearest 10m for the very long ones) and not let
your sampling method, the assigned window, control the results you obtain. You should have
given two letters for terminations (there are two ends). Note also that ILA for planar defects is
180. You should avoid using text or > in columns where numbers are input. We use these
spreadsheets to do further analysis of the slopes etc and letters/symbols are annoying.
Excursion
Most groups did a good job of following the excursion guidelines. To get a high mark in this
section I was looking for a complete description and excellent discussion of the field trip. I was
after a detailed (engineering/geological) description of the main soil, rock and structure types
encountered. What was critical to getting a good mark was to show independent (and correct)
thought I was looking for descriptions that went well beyond those that you were provided with
(of course, blatant guessing is not independent thought). Most groups achieved this.

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CVEN3201: Engineering Geology and Applied Geotechnics

K.Douglas

Conclusion
All groups made a pretty good effort for the assignment with some doing an excellent job (85%
and above). Unfortunately with a class of over 400 it is impossible to take you all out on a field trip
and have you learn anything useful hence this assignment. I hope you all got something out of
the assignment (possibly without even realising it!).
Regards

Dr Kurt Douglas

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