It has been a long time since I posted one of these. I used to call them my Weekend Catch-Up Posts, or Weekend CUPs. The idea was pretty simple: I always found more interesting geotechnical and geologic-hazard stories than I had time to write about, so I would periodically clear the queue with a list of links.
That problem has not gone away. Here are a few stories and resources from the past several weeks that I did not get a chance to cover in a full post.
- Hurricane Lala debris flows in Hawai‘i: USGS field observations and photographs show how steep gullies, channel confinement, changes in grade, and roadway crossings influenced where erosion and deposition occurred. It is a useful field-scale reminder that the details of the drainage network can control the damage.
- Lost Ground: America’s Landslide Crisis: This WCNC documentary uses Hurricane Helene to look at landslide exposure, mapping, warning, and public awareness. We are getting better at identifying susceptible areas, but getting that information into land-use decisions and the hands of property owners is still a different problem.
- NASA’s LACCE landslide-monitoring campaign: NASA is preparing a field and airborne campaign focused on slow-moving landslides and what happens before and after they accelerate. I am interested in what the project may add to the difficult question of moving from detecting motion to making useful decisions about risk.
- Debris-flow monitoring near Klukwan, Alaska: Scientists are studying the rainfall, snowmelt, soil moisture, and slope conditions that may trigger debris flows near the community. This looks like a good example of the work required to turn a mapped hazard into a useful warning system.
- Limekiln Bridge geotechnical investigation: Caltrans is drilling mostly through the existing Highway 1 bridge deck to investigate soil and rock for its replacement. The site combines bridge deterioration, coastal slope instability, traffic, park operations, and difficult access in one fairly unforgiving location.
- Toronto completes the final Eglinton West tunnels: The last two tunnels were excavated using the sequential excavation method after tunnel boring machines completed the longer western section. It is a nice example of changing the construction method where the geometry, nearby structures, and access demand it.
- GRL Engineers marks 50 years: GRL’s history is closely tied to the development of dynamic foundation testing. The anniversary is a good reminder of how instrumentation and analysis that were once specialized research tools became routine parts of deep-foundation practice.
- Pacifica acquires Goble Pile Check: The acquisition brings together Pacifica’s geotechnical and field-testing work with Goble Pile Check’s dynamic load-testing and signal-matching technology. Goble is a name with a lot of history in the deep-foundations world, so this one is worth watching.
- DFI releases an AI Usage Policy Template: The members-only template addresses data security, human oversight, approved uses, vendor review, and incident response. Plenty of firms are experimenting with AI, but many are still working through the less glamorous question of what their employees should and should not do with it.
- Free sustainability guides from EFFC and DFI: The guides are intended to make sustainability assessment more practical for geotechnical and foundation projects. This is probably most useful as a resource to bookmark and revisit when a project team is ready to move beyond general sustainability language.
I am going to try bringing the Weekend CUP back on a more regular basis. The format lets me share useful things that deserve more than a social-media link, even when I do not have enough time or enough to say for a separate article.
Be the first to comment