But again the consequences of weathering are not all adverse. Weathered rocks have provided cheap and convenient sources of materials suitable for the constructions of many large dam embankments.

Training of Geologists

Looking to the future there is no doubt that the mineral exploration sector of the mining industry will continue to grow strongly and to make increasing demands for geological services. These demands will be compounded as new discoveries are made which will require further geological work for their evaluation and development.

A major challenge facing the geological profession in Australia is how to meet these rapidly rising and aggressive demands by the mining industry as well as to provide for continued growth in the requirements for geologists in other areas of applied geology, particularly for- oil and gas exploration and development, for engineering geology and for ground water investigations.

Hopefully the required increase in numbers will come from more students being attracted to careers in geology by the boom and from the inflow of geolgists from overseas.

The main problem is in providing the specialized kinds of training necessary to ensure that geologists working in applied fields are equipped to practise efficiently.

Industry requires geologists who have not only the essential thorough training in the basic principles of geology but who also have specialized knowledge in fields of applied geology and the technological skills to put their knowledge into practice.

The subjects range beyond the technologies of geology, geo-chemistry and geophysics to include rock mechanics, mineral economics, planning and management of exploration, statistics and the use of computers. Geologists also need to be introduced to significant new technologies, for example to the present developments which are taking place in remote sensing and in seafloor exploration.

The geology departments of the universities provide basic training to high standards and some of them have gone a long way in providing training in the fundamentals of applied geology through specially designed courses, some of them extending to a fourth year. However, training in specialized methods and techniques generally falls short of what is required to make the graduate immediately effective in industry. These limitations in practical training may be due to difficulties in making sufficient course time available or to lack of equipment and specialist staff but also there is the fundamental question of whether provision of comprehensive and advanced technological, training is a proper function of a university. The geology departments of the technical institutes provide courses with a higher technical content but in their present stage of development courses do not meet the needs for advanced technological training.

Many practising geologists also feel the need for additional training and for refresher courses to keep them abreast with the latest development in their fields. Keeping up to date is an especially severe problem for field geologists because of the isolation so frequently imposed by their work.