Engineering Geology Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Rivers, glaciers, coasts, slopes and wind are studied as agents that carve and build the surface. It matters to the engineer because a landform records the process still acting on the site, which is what will act on the works.

Answer: B

A mineral is a naturally occurring substance of definite composition and structure, and a rock is an aggregate of one or more of them. Identifying the minerals is the first step in identifying the rock and predicting how it will behave.

Answer: C

Correct answer: the deformation of rock masses

Structural geology deals with how rock has been folded, faulted, jointed and sheared, and with the stresses that produced those features. For an engineer it is the most immediately useful branch, since the orientation of a joint set or a fault decides whether a slope stands or a tunnel needs support.

Answer: D

Establishing which bed overlies which, and matching sequences between distant places, is how the geological record is read as a history. Correlation lets a formation known to be troublesome at one site be anticipated at another.

Answer: A

Species appear and disappear at particular times, so a distinctive assemblage identifies the age of the bed containing it wherever it is found. It was the basis of the time scale long before radiometric dating existed.

Answer: B

Correct answer: deposits of ores, fuels and industrial minerals

Economic geology is the search for and evaluation of materials worth extracting - metallic ores, coal and hydrocarbons, and the industrial minerals from limestone to china clay. It is concerned with how such deposits form and how they are found, not with the economics of construction.

Answer: C

Correct answer: groundwater and its movement through rocks

Hydrogeology deals with water below the surface: where it is stored, how fast it moves, how aquifers recharge and how they are contaminated. It bears directly on engineering through seepage, dewatering, uplift and the inflow to be expected in a tunnel or an excavation.

Answer: D

Seismic, electrical, gravity and magnetic methods infer what lies below without excavating it, which is why they are used to plan where the boreholes should go. They give continuity between boreholes rather than replacing them.

Answer: A

Correct answer: the siting, design and construction of works

Engineering geology is the application of geology to construction - establishing what the ground is, how it will behave under the works, and what must be done about it. Its distinguishing feature is that it exists to inform a decision about a structure rather than to describe the earth for its own sake.

Answer: B

The cheapest response to bad ground is to put the works somewhere else, and that option closes once the layout is committed. Investigation during construction still has value but by then the expensive decisions have been taken.