Geotech Corner

 I am reacclimating to consultant-life and it is definitely different. 

Throw that in with the metric system, new geology and learning how to do seismic!

Just random thoughts and observations so far:

  • I never realized what a nice benefit it is that we had a drill crew at our disposal. I should know since CDOT's is always very popular with our consultants.
  • NZ is very into Scala Penetrometers which are just hand-run a-rods with a cone tip. You're lifting a hammer and letting gravity drive the a-rods into the ground. I think it can go like 2 meters deep max and people design off of that! I sometimes felt weird about only using SPTs!
  • They're also into vane shears. Again, no sample collection but you get a peak and residual shear strength. 
  • It will be really challenging working with less tools. There is this very large historic landslide my coworker and no one has thrown an inclinometer at it yet! Or a piezometer! (I'm secretly appalled but they're doing neat things with remote sensing).
  • Government stinginess and budget limits are forever though. My coworkers and I drove towards Wanaka and the road there was littered with slips and instabilities that no one has money to fix permanently. Many were just old mule roads covered in bitumen.  
  • Also fun to note it's all a bunch of deteriorating schist out here sometimes oriented not ideally towards the road. 
  • Someone called a simple engineering design called a "Cheap and Cheerful" which is the most Commonwealthy thing I've ever heard.
  • I curse the British for giving us the imperial system but it is America's "bigness" that made us too stubborn to ever pivot away from it. I'm channeling my engineering school brain i.e. the last time I actually used metric to solve problems.

Mostly though, I'm in that fun onboarding stage where you're just waiting for real life work to happen and you have to be deemed competent to stand next to water and not get hit by cars. You also go through heavy imposter syndrome because you have no idea if your skills apply to this brand new line of work. 

Next Monday I'm going to Napier, which has loads of damage from Cyclone Gabrielle. Time to geotech super hard! 


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