Book ReviewsGeological EngineeringThe Story of Vaiont: Told by the Geologist Who Discovered the LandslideTectonics of Strike-Slip Restraining and Releasing BendsApplied Geostatistics with SGeMS: A User's Guide

# Geological Engineering {#article-title-2} Review by: Allen W. Hatheway Geological engineering, as a discipline, was created at the Colorado School of Mines in 1913 to provide geologists with an ability to apply mainly civil engineering principles to site characterization for development of mineral resources. The discipline has become well known over this past century, and now it is beginning to be recognized as one of the array of geological and engineering disciplines that now are being addressed as the “applied geosciences.” Yet, the “body of knowledge” (i.e., the emerged 21st century technical education term) of the basic geological engineer remains poorly understood, both by applied geoscientists and their clients. Vallejo and Ferrer (2011) have come forth with a basic book defining the 90-year emerged body of knowledge with which every graduate geological engineer should be familiar. This edition is a 2011 translation of their original 2002 Spanish-language text. At the present, there is no other equivalent English-language text. The book is organized into four parts (I–IV), with 15 constituent chapters, and thereby takes the approach of serving as a potential one-semester upper-division North American university text. These 15 chapters present the basic knowledge of the geological engineer: fundamental earth mechanics (Part I); field-observational exploration techniques (Part II); their employment in conducting site characterization for engineered works (Part III); and their use in engineered mitigation of geological hazards (constraints; Part IV). A practical handbook flavor pervades the book. Quantification of all subjects is addressed by constant reminders that it is the geological engineer who must bridge the difficult gap between seemingly indefinable earth material field characteristics and the single-number physical parameters necessary for mathematical computation by the design engineers. The presentation is richly illustrated in color. This comes as: (1) field-oriented site examples; (2) text boxes presenting case histories; (3) physical/mechanical force diagrams relating the …