I deeply appreciate the honour of being your President. I think that perhaps the election of a non-academic person, practising geology in industry, may reflect the changing composition and character of the geological profession in Australia. Not so many years ago most geologists were attached to the Universities and the Geological Surveys. Now more than half are in industry, and the proportion is rising rapidly.

As a group, geologists in industry are relatively non-communicative and more reticent in publishing the results of their work than are their colleagues in the universities and surveys. Their contributions to society are to be judged by the tangible results flowing from their participation in the creation of useful things such as dams and power stations, new mines and quarries, oil and gas fields. They are primarily concerned with practical applications of geological science, rather than with the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. But this is no barrier to good scientific work, and geologists in industry also are making major contributions to the advancement of their science.

It seems particularly appropriate to consider the role of geology in practice in Australia at this time when the profession is stretched to its limits to meet the unprecedented and still rising demand for its services.

Geologists are deeply involved in the most fundamental way with the discovery and assessment of Australia’s basic natural resources of water, fuel and minerals and with bringing them into use.

The future progress of Australia depends greatly on the development of these resources and Australian geologists have the heavy responsibility of ensuring that their share of the work is done well.

The present sharp upsurge in activity is dominated by mineral exploration, and is superimposed on an earlier and still very active interest in oil and gas exploration. But in addition to these spectacular advances, the past 20 years have seen a steady development of engineering geology—the application of geology to the planning, design and construction of a wide range of public works, especially dams and tunnels, to the design of large underground mine openings, to strata control in coal mines, and to the search for underground water supplies.

Of the various fields in which geologists are playing an active role, I propose to discuss mainly engineering geology and mineral exploration.

Geology in Engineering

It is logical that geology should be applied to the development of large engineering projects of the kinds which are founded on rock or soil, or are located within surface and underground excavations, or which make use of rock and soil as construction materials.

During the post-war period this has been generally recognized by the engineering organizations responsible for the development of irrigation and hydro- electric projects involving large dams,