Field Trips and Short Courses

Field Trips: Notes and Guides

Over the years I have enjoyed many Field Trips and led a few. Some of the Guides for my Field Trips are available here for download. I also include Notes from a very enjoyable European Field Trip, which featured little about bimrocks, but was a lot of fun.

A Melange: Chunks of Franciscan Geology in a Matrix of Tourist Chatter, 2008: Private Melange/Bimrocks Field Trip, ARMA American Rock Mechanics Association), San Francisco, California, Saturday June 28 2008 (E. Medley).

NOTE: the 2008 Guide was significantly updated for a  2018 Field Trip organized for a Conference of the International Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists.

Golden Gate Bridge Field Trip, 2005: for GeoSyntec GWAG Conference, Oakland, California, Sunday Sept 18 2005 (E. Medley)

Field Trip Guide for Tunnels Through Fault Rocks and tectonic Melanges: A Short Course for Engineering Geologists and Geotechnical Engineers – El Cerrito Quarry and Caldecott Tunnel in Berkeley; June 2002 (made available through the permission of the San Francisco Section of the Association of Engineering Geologists http://www.aegsf.org). (E. Medley, J Wakabayashi and B. Mathieson)

 Invited Guest’s Observations on 12-Day European Field Trip: Engineering Geology in Engineering Works in Greece-Italy-France-Switzerland with Emphasis on Case Histories of Great Failure; 3rd Year Civil Engineering Course, National Technical University of Athens, Greece;  Trip Leader Prof. Paul Marinos et al; March 20-March 31, 2010. (E Medley).

Short Course Lectures and Notes

The Short Courses here are offered by myself and others who have kindly extended their permission.  The recent Short Course lectures will be more useful because of redundant overlaps with earlier material. The Lecture slides are inconsistent in format, font, and general appearance – partly because of my draftsmanship and partly because of conversion of Powerpoint to Adobe PDFs.

GEOTECHNICAL AND GEOLOGICAL ENGINEERING WITH MELANGES, FAULT ROCKS AND OTHER BIMROCKS

The Lectures are provided for this one-week Short Course taught at the National University of Columbia at Medellín, Colombia  on September  18-22, 2017. The course was organized by Prof. ‪Alvaro J. Castro and Prof. Ludger O. Suárez-Burgoa of the Department of Civil Engineering.

• Lecture 1. Introduction to Course (3.3 MB)
• Lecture 2. Geological Complexity  (10.9 MB)
• Lecture 3. Geomechanical aspects (5.8 MB)
• Lecture 4. Characterization of bimrocks (6.4 MB)
• Lecture 5. Slope, Tunnels and Construction (5.5 MB)
• Lecture 6. Some empirical approaches (4.9 MB)
• Lecture 7. Case histories  (6.3 MB)
• Lecture 8. Summary of Course (9.1 MB)  (Useful for an overview of bimrocks)
• Lecture 9. Ideas for Research, Q&A (0.3 MB)

ANTICIPATING AND ADDRESSING THE CHARACTERIZATION, DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS OF FAULT ROCKS, MELANGES and OTHER BIMROCKS: A Short Course for Engineering Geologists and Geotechnical Engineers

The Lectures and Notes are provided for this Short Course taught at the Geological Engineering Department of Hacettepe University, in Ankara, Turkey on June 21-22, 2004. The instructors were Dr. Edmund Medley, Dr. Harun Sönmez, Dr. Candan Gokceoglu, and Dr. Resat Ulusay.

• Lecture Notes (0.4MB)

• Lecture 0: Introduction (0.4 MB)
• Lecture 1: Characterization and Classification of Fault Rocks and Melanges (11.3 MB)
• Lecture 2: Investigation and field studies of bimrocks (4.4 MB)
• Lecture 3: Anticipating and solving problems with excavations and slopes in bimrocks (7.4 MB)
• Lecture 4: Tunneling through fault zones and melanges (20.1 MB)
• Lecture 5: Evaluation of strength of bimrocks (3.4 MB)
• Seminar: Simple lecture on Geological complexity: How to characterize Melange and other Bimrocks (4.0 MB)

SHORT COURSE: TUNNELS THROUGH FAULT ROCKS AND TECTONIC MELANGES: A SHORT COURSE FOR ENGINEERING GEOLOGISTS AND GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERS

This 2-day Short Course was sponsored by the San Francisco Sections of the Assn. of Eng. Geologists and the American Soc. Civil Engineers. It was held in Oakland, California  on June 2002. Gruppe Geotechnik Graz (3G) of Graz, Austria kindly made available the Lectures taught during the Short Course by Professor Wulf Schubert and Professor Gunter Riedmueller.

• Compilation of All 7 Lectures (35 MB)
• Lecture 1 –  Introduction (2.3 MB)
• Lecture 2 – Characterization (1.6 MB)
• Lecture 3 – Research on Bimrocks (0.9 MB)
• Lecture 4 – Investigation (1) (3 MB)
• Lecture 5 – Investigation (2) (10 MB)
• Lecture 6 – Investigation (3) (8.5 MB)
• Lecture 7 – Construction (5 MB)
• Field Trip Guide (15 MB) for El Cerrito Quarry and Caldecott Tunnel in Berkeley (made available through the permission of the San Francisco Section of the Association of Engineering Geologists 

Please contact me if you want to contribute content to this site but note that I only post useful and well-presented material.

Use the resources freely, but please credit  authors! All resources are provided on the condition that they be used for sole use, and for the non-commercial purpose of scientific and engineering research.