News

News, announcements, policy updates, spotlighted websites, software updates and other info that may be of interest to practicing geotechnical engineers, engineering geologists, geophysicists, hydrogeologists and related professions.

Geologic Hazards

DBM Completes Landslide Repair in Oceanside

September 18, 2007 rockman Comments Off on DBM Completes Landslide Repair in Oceanside

Oceanside, Calif.— DBM Contractors, Inc. performed emergency landslide repair for the Sprinter Mainline in the city of Oceanside. The slide occurred during earth moving to build a retaining wall at the base of a steep […]

Geoarchaeology

World War II Prisoners Tunnels Discovered with GPR

September 13, 2007 rockman Comments Off on World War II Prisoners Tunnels Discovered with GPR

Remember the 1963 movie "The Great Escape" starring Steve McQueen, James Gardner, and Charles Bronson about Allied prisoners planning a mass escape from a German POW Camp? Ok, me neither, but in the movie, the prisoners dug 3 tunnels to escape from the German POW camp Stalag Luft III in Zagan (formerly in East Germany, now in Poland). A recent archeology study used ground penetrading radar or GPR to uncover not 3 but over 100 different tunnels. Read more…

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Miscellaneous

Senate OKs $1B to repair US bridges

September 13, 2007 rockman Comments Off on Senate OKs $1B to repair US bridges

From AP by way of CentreDaily.com and the ADSC:  The Senate approved $1 billion on Monday to speed repair and replacement of America’s crumbling network of bridges, six weeks after the Interstate 35W span collapsed […]

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Available Resources

Rockfall Protection Installation Video

September 11, 2007 rockman Comments Off on Rockfall Protection Installation Video

Geovert, a specialty design-build geotechnical contractor in New Zealand and Australia has released a video showing the construction of a challenging rockfall protection project. From their YouTube description:

Stockton Coal Mine is situated on the rugged west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, near Westport. Geovert, a design-build contractor specializing in difficult access rockfall mitigation projects, were retained to provide a turnkey solution combining slope protection and stabilisation measures, to manage the rockfall hazard and protect the surrounding environment with a world class design build rockfall protection solution. The barrier was 1.7 kilometres long and follows a ridgeline escarpment, making this the longest rockfall protection barrier in the southern hemisphere. This was one of the largest and most challenging rockfall construction projects completed to date anywhere in the world.

Click through to see the video.

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Press Releases

ADSC Joins with FHWA to Conduct Hollow Core Soil Nail Research

September 10, 2007 rockman Comments Off on ADSC Joins with FHWA to Conduct Hollow Core Soil Nail Research

The ADSC [Editor] (Association of Drilled Shaft Contractors) [/Editor] will join the FHWA as co-sponsors of a research project to develop a database of the available grout-to-ground bond stress of Hollow Core Anchors (HCAs) and to determine if correlations exist with traditional solid bar, drill and grout soil nails. The FHWA and the ADSC are interested in documenting the performance of HCAs in soil nail wall type construction and identifying methods of quality assurance so that HCAs can be specified with confidence in appropriate applications, both temporary and permanent. [Editor] Photo of hollow core nail installation underneath an existing bridge abutment, courtesy of NCS Consultants, LLC. Read on for the rest of the release. [/Editor]

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Available Resources

Geomorphology from Space

September 10, 2007 rockman Comments Off on Geomorphology from Space

Geomorphology from Space is an out of print 1986 NASA publication edited by Nicholas M. Short, Sr. and Robert W. Blair, Jr. designed for use by the remote sensing science and educational communities to study landforms and landscapes. The entire book, including 237 plates of landforms, photographs, locator maps and some geologic maps has been reproduced on the NASA Website. [more…]

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Miscellaneous

Tensar Plans Initial Public Offering

September 10, 2007 rockman Comments Off on Tensar Plans Initial Public Offering

Tensar Corp., makers of geosynthetic products for the construction industry, including geotextiles, geogrid, and geocomposite drains, has filed the paperwork with the SEC for an initial public offering (IPO) of common stock that could have an offering price of over $200 million. [more…]

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Rockman's Ramblings

Server Problems

September 9, 2007 rockman Comments Off on Server Problems

Last thursday-friday was not a very good one for me. Sometime between 10 and 11:30am on thursday, the server hosting GeoPrac and a number of my other websites and those of my clients went down. I was on my way up to Phoenix for meetings, so I didn’t know about it until I got a call from my office that the email was down at about 4pm.

I got online and couldn’t bring up the website of my hosting company. I did a blog/bulletin board search to try and find out what was going on since I figured there were a bunch of other people effected by this as well. The first page I found just had posts from other people like me, trying to figure out what was going on. But there was a link to another thread, and I knew i was in trouble when I saw that it was page 1 of 24! [more…]

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