Risk in Geotechnical Practice: Geotechnical Judgment
People use judgment in every aspect of their lives. We rely on our judgments to make decisions that can have consequences from small to large on ourselves and on others, sometimes with life-threatening...
Risk in Geotechnical Practice: Are Design Professionals Liable for Failing to Anticipate the Effects of Climate Change?…
Climate change is the result of rising greenhouse gasses from a century and a half of development and industrialization around the world. The inability of the global community to reduce greenhouse gas...
Risk in Geotechnical Practice: Whose Risk Is It Anyway?
The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico was once the fifth-largest region in the world for manufacturing of pharmaceutical products, including many of the top global producers. In 2016, the pharmaceutical exports...
Risk in Geotechnical Practice: Unraveling Foundation Uncertainty
Statistical Analysis Offers a Rational Approach for Controlling Foundation Risk in Design-Build Projects. For the past 20 years, design-build (DB) procurement has become the default for many transportation...
Risk in Geotechnical Practice: Dealing With Uncertain Ground
Tools for identifying and managing risk in geotechnical engineering projects. Risk is an inherent component of all types of projects, no matter the size or discipline. Geotechnical engineering projects...
Did You Know? Geostrata Is 20
Spring 2000 was the first issue of Geo-Strata (now GEOSTRATA). That issue included articles on academic-industry partnerships, implementing innovative technology, marketing advice from "The Old Rainmaker,"...
Soil Sampling at Sword Beach in Normandy, France, 1943: How Geotechnical Engineering Influenced the D-Day Invasion
When the World paused last summer to remember the 75th anniversary of D-Day, many of us were gripped by stories, both heroic and horrific, told about the Allied invasion of Normandy’s beaches. One of these...
Big Steps for Mankind: Extraterrestrial Sampling and Exploration 50 Years after Apollo 11
Between June 1966 and January 1968, four Surveyor missions successfully landed on the Moon, collecting invaluable scientific data required to support the coming manned Apollo missions. Central to the goals...
Best Practices For Geotechnical Site Characterization: Have We Regressed from Decades Past?
The objective of a geotechnical site-characterization program is to determine soil and rock stratigraphy, in-situ pore water pressure conditions, and soil and rock properties for analysis and design of...
Creating Art AND Reducing Project Risk WITH 3D Modeling: Digital Insights Unearth Hidden Landscapes
Humans have always lived in threedimensional space, with senses that evolved for a 3D environment. So, it’s perfectly natural that people can more quickly, easily, and fully understand something when it’s...
Charting A Course To Resilience: Geotechnical Efforts Enhance New Jersey’s Navigation System
The New Jersey (NJ) Marine Transportation System (MTS) is comprised of roughly 500 nautical miles of engineered waterways, thousands of docks, berths, and ramps, and two internationally significant ports....
What Does Diggs Do For Me? Better, Faster, Cheaper Is the Goal!
For the past decade, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has been at the forefront of advancing geotechnical data management associated with its investment and leadership related to DIGGS (Data...
The Pipeline to Diversity and Inclusion in the Geoprofessions: Challenging the Profession to Increase Innovation, Profitability, and Future Sustainability
Diversity + Inclusion (D+I) is a term often used in the workplace, but its meaning is not well understood. People generally value the concept, but its nebulousness has kneecapped the movement. In fact,...
Minnesota’s Story Through ASCE’s Infrastructure Report Card: We Can All Help
The COVID-19 pandemic caught everyone off guard, including university administrators, faculty, and students. Suddenly forced off campus in early March and quarantined in many different settings for an...
Resources to Enhance the Geotechnical Educational Experience
In 2016, I joined the ASCE Minnesota Section’s (ASCE-MN) inaugural infrastructure Report Card Committee at a time in my career when I was curious about the role civil engineering had to play in the overall...
How Mentoring Can Chart Your Career Path with Intention and Purpose
Growing up in India with a father who is a mechanical engineer and a musician, and a mother who was like a fireball, elevating and inspiring everyone around her, I was unaware that my parents were my first...
Inclusion as a Strategic Imperative: How One Engineering Firm Has Created Change from Within
Tackling inclusion and diversity in a business can seem like too tangled a knot to untie. Some think they must be the CEO to make a difference in this realm, and others think it’s too large of an issue...
Seeing into the Subsurface: Harnessing Geophysics to Remotely Monitor the Condition of Earthworks
Condition assessment of geotechnical structures is essential for cost-effective maintenance and prevention of hazardous failure events. Early identification of deteriorating conditions generally allows...
Flexible Rockfall Barrier Post Support Performance: Deflection as a Positive Attribute
Rockfall has plagued infrastructure for centuries, whether generated by natural weathering of unaltered rock slopes or due to jointing and weaknesses in constructed rock slopes. Rockfall in the U.S. has...
Spanning the Saint Lawrence
The recently opened Samuel De Champlain Bridge is an iconic gateway to Montreal. Its signature structure, an asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge, features a 240 m long main span over the Saint Lawrence River....
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