GEOLOGY FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS

Introduction
1.1 Role of the engineer in the systematic exploration of a site
The investigation of the suitability and characteristics of sites as they affect the design and construction of civil engineering works
and the security of neighbouring structures is laid out in British Standard Code of Practice for site investigations (BS 5930:1981,
formerly CP 2001). The sections on geology and site exploration define the minimum that a professional engineer should know.
The systematic exploration and investigation of a new site may involve five stages of procedure. These stages are:
(1) preliminary investigation using published information and other existing data;
(2) a detailed geological survey of the site, possibly with a photogeology study;
(3) applied geophysical surveys to provide information about the subsurface geology;
(4) boring, drilling and excavation to provide confirmation of the previous results, and quantitative detail, at critical points on the
site; and
(5) testing of soils and rocks to assess their suitability, particularly their mechanical properties (soil mechanics and rock
mechanics), either in situ or from samples.

1.2 Relevance of geology to civil engineering

Most civil engineering projects involve some excavation of soils and rocks, or involve loading the Earth by building on it. In some
cases, the excavated rocks may be used as constructional material, and in others, rocks may form a major part of the finished
product, such as a motorway cutting or the site f or a reservoir. The feasibility, the planning and design, the construction and
costing, and the safety of a project may depend critically on the geological conditions where the construction will take place. This is
especially the case in extended ‘greenfield’ sites, where the area affected by the project stretches for kilometres, across
comparatively undeveloped ground. Examples include the Channel Tunnel project and the construction of motorways. In a section
of the M9 motorway linking Edinburgh and Stirling that crosses abandoned oil-shale workings, realignment of the road, on the
advice of government geologists, led to a substantial saving. In modest projects, or in those involving the redevelopment of a
limited site, the demands on the geological knowledge of the engineer or the need for geological advice will be less, but are never
negligible. Site investigation by boring and by testing samples may be an adequate preliminary to construction in such cases.

1.3 The science of geology

Geology is the study of the solid Earth. It includes the investigation of the rocks forming the Earth (petrology) and of how they are
distributed (their structure), and their constituents (mineralogy and crystallography). Geochemistry is a study of the chemistry
of rocks and the distribution of major and trace elements in rocks, rock suites, and minerals. This can lead to an understanding of
how a particular rock has originated (petro genesis), and also, in the broadest sense, to a knowledge of the chemistry of the
upper layers of the Earth.

The distribution of rocks at the Earth’s surface is found by making a geological survey (that is, by geological mapping) and is
recorded on geological maps. This information about rocks is superimposed on a topographic base map. Knowledge of the nature
and physical conditions of the deeper levels of the planet can be gained only by the special methods of geophysics, the twin science
of geology; the term ‘Earth sciences’ embraces both. From the theory and methods of geophysics, a set of techniques (applied
geophysics) has been evolved for exploring the distribution of rocks of shallower levels where the interests of geologists and
geophysicists are most intertwined.

Knowledge of the Earth at the present time raises questions about the processes that have formed it in the past: that is, about its
history. The interpretation of rock layers as Earth history is called stratigraphy, and a study of the processes leading to the
formation of sedimentary rocks is called sedimentology. The study of fossils (palaeontology) is closely linked to Earth history,
and from both has come the understanding of the development of life on our planet. The insight thus gained, into expanses of time
stretching back over thousands of millions of years, into the origins of life and into the evolution of man, is geology’s main
contribution to scientific philosophy and to the ideas of educated men and women.

Minerals and rocks

2.1 The common rock-forming minerals
2.1.1 The properties of minerals
A mineral is a naturally occurring inorganic substance which has a definite chemical composition, normally uniform throughout its
volume. In contrast, rocks are collections of one or more minerals. In order to understand how rocks vary in composition and
properties, it is necessary to know the variety of minerals that commonly occur in them, and to identify a rock it is necessary to
know which minerals are present in it. Two techniques are employed to identify minerals:

(a) the study of a hand specimen of the mineral, or the rock in which it occurs, using a hand lens (×8 or ×10) and observing
diagnostic features; and
(b) the examination of a thin slice of the mineral, ground down to a thickness of 0.03 mm, using a microscope, the rock slice
being mounted in transparent resin on a glass slide.

The former method is by far the most useful to an engineer, since proficiency in the use of a microscope requires an amount of
study out of proportion to its future benefit, except for the specialist engineering geologist. However, examination of rocks in thin
section will provide excellent details of rock textures, some of which are difficult to see in the hand specimen. In hand-specimen
identification, some features are purely visual (for example, the colour of the mineral) but others, such as hardness, have to be
assessed by simple tests. (If the mineral grains are large enough, and an accurate value is needed, they may be removed from the
rock and measured in a laboratory.)

A mineral specimen can be an object of beauty in those occasional circumstances where it forms a single crystal or cluster of
crystals. The requirements are that the mineral has been free to grow outwards into the solution or melt from which it formed, not
obstructed by other solid matter, nor hindered anywhere around it by a shortage of the constituents needed for growth. In such an
environment, it develops a regular pattern of faces and angles between the faces, which is characteristic of a particular mineral. The
study of this regularity of form, and of the internal structure of the mineral to which it is related, is called crystallography. In most
mineral specimens, the local conditions have hindered or prevented some of the faces from developing, or the surface of the
mineral is formed simply from the fractures along which it was broken off when collected. Even in these specimens, there is the
same regular internal arrangement of atoms as in a perfect crystal of the same mineral. The specimen is crystalline even though it
is not a crystal. Furthermore, in an imperfect crystal, where some faces have developed more than others to produce a distorted
external form, the angles between the faces are still the same as in a perfect crystal.

A study of the regularity of crystal forms, including the values of interfacial angles, shows that all crystals possess certain
elements of symmetry. These elements include:

(a) a centre of symmetry, which a crystal possesses when all its faces occur in parallel pairs on opposite sides of the crystal. A
cube, for example, possesses a centre of symmetry but a tetrahedron does not.

(b) an axis of symmetry, which is a line through a crystal such that a complete rotation of 360° about it produces more than
one identical view. There are four types of axis of symmetry: a diad axis, when the same view is seen twice (every 180°); a triad
axis, when the same view is seen three times (every 120°); a tetrad axis (four times—every 90°), and finally a hexad axis (six
times—every 60°).

(c) a plane of symmetry, which divides the crystal into halves, each of which is a mirror image of the other without rotation.

On the basis of the number and type of symmetry elements present in naturally formed crystals, seven crystal systems have been
proposed, to which all minerals can be assigned.

Twinning in crystals occurs where one part of a crystal has grown or has been deformed such that its atomic structure is rotated
or reversed compared with the other part. Multiple twinning occurs and is a diagnostic property in the plagioclase feldspars (see
Section 2.1.3).

As well as crystallography (form) and twinning, other important properties are used to identify minerals in hand specimens, as
follows:

COLOUR AND STREAK

The colour of a mineral is that seen on its surface by the naked eye. It may depend on the impurities present in light-coloured
minerals, and one mineral specimen may even show gradation of colour or different colours. For these reasons, colour is usually a
general rather than specific guide to which mineral is present. Iridescence is a play of colours characteristic of certain minerals. The
streak is the colour of the powdered mineral. This is most readily seen by scraping the mineral across a plate of unglazed hard
porcelain and observing the colour of any mark left. It is a diagnostic property of many ore minerals.

For example, the lead ore, galena, has a metallic grey colour but a black streak.

CLEAVAGE

Most minerals can be cleaved along certain specific crystallographic directions which are related to planes of weakness in the
atomic structure of the mineral (see Fig. 2.1). These cleavage directions are usually, but not always, parallel to one of the crystal
faces. Some minerals, such as quartz and garnet, possess no cleavages, whereas others may have one (micas), two (pyroxenes and
amphiboles), three (galena) or four (fluorite). When a cleavage is poorly developed it is called a parting.
 A surface formed by breaking the mineral along a direction which is not a cleavage is called a fracture and is usually more
irregular than a cleavage plane. A fracture may also occur, for example, in a specimen which is either an aggregate of tiny crystals
or glassy (that is, non-crystalline). A curved, rippled fracture is termed conchoidal (shell-like).

HARDNESS

The relative hardness (H) of two minerals is defined by scratching each with the other and seeing which one is gouged. It is defined
by an arbitrary scale of ten standard minerals, arranged in Mohs’ scale of hardness, and numbered in degrees of increasing
hardness from 1 to 10 (Table 2.1). The hardnesses of items commonly available are also shown, and these may be used to assess
hardness within the lower part of the range. The only common mineral that has a hardness greater than 7 is garnet. Most others
are semiprecious or precious stones.

LUSTRE

Light is reflected from the surface of a mineral, the amount of light depending on physical qualities of the surface (such as its
smoothness and transparency). This property is called the lustre of the mineral, and is described according to the degree of
brightness from ‘splendent’ to ‘dull’. The terms to describe lustre are given in Table 2.2.

CRYSTAL HABIT

The development of an individual crystal, or an aggregate of crystals, to produce a particular external shape depends on the
temperature and pressure during their formation. One such environment may give long needle-like crystals and another may give
short platy crystals, both with the same symmetry. Since the mode of formation of a mineral is sometimes a clue to what it is, this
shape or crystal habit is of use in the identification of some minerals. The terms used to describe crystal habit are given in Table
2.3.
 Aggregations of minerals may also show some internal structure formed by the relationship of the crystals to each other.
For example, in columnar structure, the crystals lie in columns parallel to each other. In granular structure, the minerals are
interlocking grains similar in appearance to the crystals in sugar lumps. In massive structure, the crystal grains cannot be seen by
the naked eye.

SPECIFIC GRAVITY

The specific gravity or density of a mineral can be measured easily in a laboratory, provided the crystal is not too small. The
specific gravity (sp. gr.) is given by the relation:

where W1 is the weight of the mineral grain in air, and W 2 is the weight in water. A steelyard apparatus such as the Walker Balance
is commonly used. In the field such a means of precision is not available, and the specific gravity of a mineral is estimated as low,
medium or high by the examiner. It is important to know which minerals have comparable specific gravities:

(a) low specific gravity minerals include silicates, carbonates, sulphates and halides, with specific gravities ranging between 2.2 and
4.0;

(b) medium specific gravity minerals include metallic ores such as sulphides and oxides, with specific gravities between 4.5 and
7.5;

(c) high specific gravity minerals include native metallic elements such as pure copper, gold and silver; but these are rare minerals
and are very unlikely to be encountered.

TRANSPARENCY

Transparency is a measure of how clearly an object can be seen through a crystal. The different degrees of transparency are given in
Table 2.4.
 REACTION WITH ACID

When a drop of cold 10% dilute hydrochloric acid is put on certain minerals, a reaction takes place. In calcite (CaCO3), bubbles of
carbon dioxide make the acid froth, and in some sulphide ores, hydrogen sulphide is produced.

TENACITY

Tenacity is a measure of how the mineral deforms when it is crushed or bent. The terms used to describe it are given in Table 2.5.

OTHER PROPERTIES

Taste and magnetic properties are diagnostic of a few minerals. Mineral associations are also of use. Some minerals often occur
together whereas others are never found together because they are unstable as a chemical mixture and would react to produce
another mineral.

Nearly all identification of minerals in hand specimens in the field is made with the proviso that the specimen being
examined is not a rare mineral but is one of a dozen or so common, rock-forming minerals, or one of a couple of dozen minerals
commonly found in the sheet-like veins that cut rocks. The difference between common quartz and one particular rare mineral in a
hand specimen is insignificant and easily missed, but mistakes of identification are presumably as rare as the mineral. The same
limits of resolution. using such simple techniques mean also that only in favourable circumstances is it possible to identify, for
example, which variety of feldspar is present in a fine-grained rock as distinct from identifying feldspar.

Three or four properties are usually sufficient for a positive identification of a particular mineral and there is little point in
determining the others. For example, a mineral with a metallic lustre, three cleavages all at right angles, a grey colour and a black
streak is almost certainly the common lead ore, galena.

2.1.2 Silicate minerals

Of the hundred or so elements known, only eight are abundant at the Earth’s surface. These, in decreasing order of abundance, are
oxygen (O), silicon (Si), aluminium (Al), iron (Fe), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), potassium (K) and magnesium (Mg). The common
rock-forming minerals are formed mainly of combinations of these important elements, and most of them are silicates.

All silicate minerals possess the silicate oxyanion, . This oxyanion resembles a tetrahedron in outline (Fig. 2.2), with a
silicon atom at the centre and four oxygen atoms at the corners. Modern classification of silicate minerals is based on the degree of
polymerisation of the tetrahedral groups. In some silicate minerals all four oxygens in a tetrahedron are shared with other
tetrahedra. These are called framework silicates and include feldspars and quartz. Sharing three oxygens leads to the formation of
sheet silicates, such as the micas; and when two oxygens are shared, chain silicates form, as in the pyroxenes and amphiboles. In
other silicate minerals the tetrahedra remain as discrete units sharing no common oxygens. These are called island silicates and
include olivine and garnet.

The most obvious difference visible in hand specimens between two minerals in a rock is often that one is light coloured and the
other is dark coloured. Generally, the darkcoloured silicates contain iron and magnesium as essential elemental constituents,
whereas the light-coloured silicates contain aluminium and alkalis. A simple division into these two principal groups of rock-
forming silicates is therefore employed in this chapter.

DARK-COLOURED SILICATE MINERALS

Dark-coloured silicate minerals range from vitreous to dull in lustre. Their other properties, observable in hand specimens, are
listed in Table 2.6, and each of the important minerals in this group is now discussed.

Olivine Olivine ([MgFe]2SiO4) is a mineral formed at high temperature which crystallises early from a basic magma to form well
shaped, rather squat prisms in most of the rocks in which it is present. Magma is hot

Table 2.6 Physical properties of some dark-coloured silicate minerals.

Mineral Colour Specific gravity Hardness Cleavages

olivine green or dark 3.5+ 6½ none (one
green poor
pyroxene black or brown 3.3 5½ fracture) two
(augite)
hornblende black 3.3 5½ two
biotite brown 3 2½ one (perfect)
garnet red (variable) 3.5+ 7 none
liquid rock which, when consolidated, is known as igneous rock. Some crystals in igneous rocks may, however, show corroded
crystal faces because of a reaction with the surrounding magma before solidification was complete.

Pyroxene Pyroxene (X2Y2O6), where X may be calcium, iron or magnesium, and Y is silicon or aluminium, exists in many
varieties, but the most important one in igneous rocks is the mineral augite, the properties of which are listed in Table 2.6. The
atomic structure of augite consists of single chains of tetrahedra [SiO 3] n linked laterally by calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and iron
(Fe) cations. The bonds between individual chains are relatively weak and the cleavage directions are parallel to the chains. Augite
has two cleavages parallel to the length of the mineral, which are seen to intersect at about 90° on the basal face of its crystal (Figs
2.3, 4 & 5). Augite is common in igneous rocks which have a relatively low percentage of silica, and frequently occurs with olivine.
No hydroxyl group (OH) is present in either augite or olivine and both can be described as ‘dry’ minerals. These minerals are rarely
found in sediments since they alter easily when exposed to water and air (Section 2.1.5). They may be present in some
metamorphic rocks.

Hornblende Hornblende (x2–3Y5Z8O22(OH)2), where X may be calcium or sodium, Y may be magnesium or iron, and Z may be silicon or
aluminium, belongs to the amphibole group of minerals, and its main physical properties are shown in Table 2.6. Its structure
resembles that of augite and it has two cleavages parallel to its length, which are seen to intersect at about 124° on the basal face of
its crystal (Figs 2.6 & 7). This angle of cleavage intersection is the most certain way of distinguishing hornblende from augite in a
hand specimen.

Hornblende is a common mineral in igneous rocks (see Section 2.2.2) with average amounts of silica. It crystallises from magma
containing appreciable amounts of water and can be said to be a ‘wet’ mineral, since it contains hydroxyl groups in its structure. It
is not very stable when weathered at the Earth’s surface and is rarely found in sediments.

It is, however, a common constituent of metamorphic rocks (Section 2.2.5).

Figure 2.3 A single-chain silicate structure show ing (a) a single chain of linked [SiO 4] tetrahedra joined at two corners, and with
composition [SiO3] n . The single chain has a trapezoidal cross section (b) when viewed along its length.

Figure 2.4 Section of atomic structure of augite crystal viewed at right angles to prism zone.

Figure 2.5 Crystal of augite showing two cleavages meeting at approximately right angles on the basal face (compare with Fig. 2.7).
 O ]
Figure 2.6tetrahedra, with composition [Si Structure of hornblende. (a) Double chain of linked [SiO 4 11 n .

(b) The double chain has 4]

trapezoidal cross section (as shown) when viewed along its length.
(c) The composite structure of double chains stacked together and linked laterally by Na, Ca, Mg, Fe, and OH ions. Splitting occurs
along two preferred directions (i.e. there are two directions of cleavage).

Figure 2.7 Crystal of hornblende showing two cleavages meeting at 124° on the basal face (see also Fig. 2.5).
Biotite (K ] Si Al O ]
Biotite 2[MgFe 6 6 2 20[OH 4) is a dark-coloured member of the mica group of minerals. Its main properties are listed in

Table 2.6. Like all micas, the atomic structure of biotite consists of a ‘sandwich’ with two sheets of linked [SiO 4] tetrahedra
forming the outer layers. These are linked together by another layer of metallic cations (Mg 2+, Fe2+, Fe3+, etc.) and hydroxyl groups.
Each of these ‘sandwich’ units is linked to another identical unit by a layer of potassium cations. The links are weak bonds and the
mineral cleaves easily into flakes along the planes separating the ‘sandwich’ units (Fig. 2.8). Biotite usually crystallises from a
magma containing water at a late stage in solidification. It is common in igneous rocks which are relatively rich in silica, and also in
sediments and metamorphic rocks. Biotite is mined for use as an insulating material in certain electrical appliances, from deposits
where the crystals are about 1 m across.