ENGINEERING GEOLOGY - AS DEFINED BY DAN MOYE

From 1962 - Course notes, University of California, Berkeley.

Engineering geology in practice is a service to civil engineering (including the civil aspects of mining engineering). The engineering geologist should be, first and foremost, a well-trained geologist. However there are very few engineers qualified to specify in detail the nature of the geological services they require. So to be fully effective, the engineering geologist should have sufficient insight into the nature of engineering problems to be able on the one hand to recognise and select for investigation the geological factors which are significant to particular engineering projects, and, on the other hand, to avoid wasted effort on irrelevant aspects of geology. Further, he should be able to communicate the geological information for the engineer in terms which can be understood and used, otherwise his work is sterile.

It is considered therefore that the systematic study of engineering geology should be deferred until the student has the required background in geology, i.e. after a 3-year course.

From 1966 - Symposium on Undergraduate Training: at Australian National University

I suppose any well-trained geologist should be able to produce a reasonably accurate picture of any area, but the picture given will be greatly influenced by the geologist's own specialised viewpoint.

It may even omit apparently minor features which in fact are of great engineering significance. It requires the specialised knowledge of the engineering geologist to present a complete picture of the geological factors which are significant to engineering work, without cluttering the picture with additional details which although correct may be quite irrelevant.

Having made these purely geological predictions, the geologist proceeds to forecast the influence of the geology on the engineering work. In doing so he should be fully aware that he has passed from the field of geological science into the field of geological engineering; from facts and scientific inferences to engineering applications. Regrettably, frequently the passage is from a field in which the geologist is competent into one in which he is not. It should be impressed on would-be engineering geologists that they should not make engineering forecasts unless qualified to do so. Lacking this, the engineering geologist should restrict himself to the geological facts and inferences.