Jahns Lectures
October 2008 Announcement:
Edmund Medley, Ph.D, PE, CEG, F.ASCE is the 2009 Richard H. Jahns Distinguished Lecturer in Engineering Geology. The intent of the partially-funded Lectureship is to encourage student and professional awareness of Engineering Geology through a series of lectures presented across North America during the award year (October 2008 to October 2009). The selection committee for this award is composed of representatives of the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists (AEG) and the Engineering Geology Division of the Geological Society of America (GSA). For Lecture Abstracts scroll to bottom of this page or click here.
50 years old, the AEG is an international, non-profit, scientific and technical association whose 3,000 members include geoscientists specializing in engineering geology, environmental geology, and ground-water geology as well as other professionals in affiliated fields such as civil and mining engineering, land-use planning, public policy and education. Established in 1888, The GSA is a global professional society with a growing membership of more than 21,000 individuals in over 85 countries, and encourages the professional growth of earth scientists at all levels of expertise and from all sectors: academic, government, business, and industry.
The award was established in 1988 to commemorate Professor Jahns (1915-1983), who had an influential and diverse career in academia, consulting and government. Past Lecturers are well-known academics and geopractitioners.
Dr. Medley is a in independent Consulting Geological Engineer. Between June 2005 and June 2009 he was a Senior Consultant in the Oakland, California office of Geosyntec Consultants, an international consultancy renown for innovative solutions to geoengineering and environmental problems. Dr Medley started work in the Applied Earth Sciences in 1969, and now has over 30 years of unusually varied international experience in geotechnical and geological engineering consulting, mineral exploration prospecting, failure investigation, project management, litigation testifying, academic research, teaching, and lecturing. He has an international reputation for his pioneering research into the engineering and geological characterization of bimrocks (block-in-matrix rocks), complex geological mixtures of rock and soil such as melanges, fault rocks, weathered rocks, tills, and colluvium. (Most of his professional contributions are at freely available at bimrocks.geoengineer.org.)
Dr. Medley also has experience evaluating geotechnical/geological engineering vulnerabilities and the causes of civil engineering failures, and has provided testimony for attorneys, insurance companies, contractors, and municipal clients. Projects include investigation of major landslides, rockfall hazards, expansive/collapsing soils, tunnel failures, coastal erosion, sinkholes and other ground movements in California, Nevada, District of Columbia; Hawaii, Guam, and Papua New Guinea. Dr. Medley has authored/co-authored about 50 professional contributions, and presented well over 150 professional and academic lectures, Short Courses and MCLE Credit courses. He is licensed as an engineer and geologist in the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom.
In 1978, graduating from the Univ. British Columbia, Dr. Medley was the first awardee of the Aro A. Aho Memorial Medal for Academic Excellence in Geological Engineering. He was the AEG Marliave Scholar in 1993, awarded for outstanding scholarship in Engineering Geology and Geological Engineering. He was the San Francisco AEG Section Membership Committee Chairman between 1991 and 1993 and the San Francisco Section Short Course Chairman between 1995 and 1996.
A Note About Prof. Richard H. Jahns
I am very proud to bear the name Richard H Jahns Distinguished Lecturer for a year. I never knew him, but he was one heck of a guy….
Prof. Jahns was a Professor at Caltech (1946-1960) and Pennsylvania State University (1960 - 1965). He was Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford between 1965 and 1979. He established a new department at Stanford: Applied Earth Sciences blending traditional geology with applied and practical aspects of the geosciences. Once upon a time the euphonious phrase Applied Earth Sciences was the name of at least one famous, but now-defunct firm, and also proudly included in the mast of several geoconsultancies.
Professor Jahns was renowned for his challenging Field School courses, his practical inclinations, his superior mapping and sketching skills and his wit. Some interesting biographies of Professor Jahns are those of the Stanford Historical Society and that of Prof. Gordon Brown and Prof. Rodney Ewing in the American Mineralogist, 1986. There is a very amusing, touching autobiography/interview “Oh Shoot: This Has Been Delightful!” by Alfred Jahns and Prof Arvid Johnson (editing taped interviews by Harry Press) in the Introduction to the 1990 Richard H. Jahns Memorial Volume (ed. A.M Johnson, C.W. Burnham, C.RE. Allen and W. Muehlberger; Elsevier, New York, 594 pages). I have adopted the title of that article for one of my Jahns Lectures. I hope to secure Elsevier’s permission to reproduce the article or otherwise make it more generally available from this web page. NOTE: As of October 2008 - no luck obtaining the permission, but….
…. a comprehensive 1990 Biography of Professor Jahns was published by Richard Proctor and Karl Vonder Linden, in the Bulletin of the Assoc. Engineering Geologists (Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 129-234). You can go look the paper up or save yourself some time by downloading
it from this site. Warning: it is a 10MB PDF file. (Thanks to Dick Proctor for his permission to provide this paper online!)
Requesting Lectures:
I offer several Lectures, as summarized below. Arrangements should be made by contacting me directly (emedleyATgeosyntecDOTcom). Lectures will start in October 2008 and run through October 2009. I expect to develop separate Tours in the USA, Canada and hopefully Mexico: roughly Northwest, North-Central. Northeast; Southwest, South-Central and Southeast. My first tour is in Mississippi the second week of November followed by a trips to Vancouver (mid-November) and Michigan/Ontario (early December).
NOTE on $$. The Lectures are partially funded by the AEG/GSA. Geosyntec Consultants is also providing significant support. However, I much appreciate any additional support that can be provided in the form of contributions, hotel rooms, meals and so on.
Lecture Abstracts:
For a printable separate page of Abstracts, click here.
The Least You Should Know About Characterizing Geological Chaos: Bimrocks (block-in-matrix rocks) are geologically complex mixtures of rocks and soils, such as melanges, fault rocks, and weathered rocks. Bimrocks present major challenges to geopractitioners because successful and economical characterizations of rock/soil mixtures are frustrated by their geological, spatial and mechanical variability. This Lecture presents broad concepts on characterization, design and construction in bimrocks that have been provocative, yet useful, to geopractitioners around the world.
The Comforts of Ignorance and the Benefits of Arrogance - Lessons of the Failure Kind for the Geopractitioner: Ignorance and arrogance are all too common in the design professions. It is comforting to not know what one does not know. And, there are benefits to being arrogant: why waste time on having a colleague check your work if you know what you are doing? Why go through the pain of further education or professional development? Why should engineering geologists talk to geotechnical engineers (and vice versa)? After all: “I know enough geowhatever to get by.” But ignorance leads to blissful mistakes and arrogance results in occasional spectacular, famous and expensive failures. In this lecture a few lessons are offered, particularly to the engineering geologist/geotechnical engineer/environmental scientist who thinks he/she knows it all.
Of Elephants, Earthquakes, Caves and Hot Rock - Recent Geological Engineering Adventures: The Lecturer, a Civil Engineer/Engineering Geologist, describes the technical background of a Geological Engineer in the context of elephants. The broad technical skills sets of most Geological Engineers are excellent for the two-way translations of geology and engineering. Three recent case histories provide examples: A summary of the Geological Engineering observations from a reconnaissance commissioned to observe damage resulting from the October 2006 Hawaii earthquake; the very challenging Forbes Cave project in Hawaii, a rare story of a geopractitioner becoming very dirty as a Court-Appointed Expert advising on lava tube cave stability and recovering a buried collection of unique Hawaiian cultural artifacts; and, the Geological Engineering insight required for overall geoengineering characterization of terrain hazards at the Lihir gold mine in Papua New Guinea, located in a geothermally active, collapsed volcanic caldera.
Something to Chew on- Rock is More Nutritious than Dirt: A medley of geoengineering presentations is scrambled to provide oft-neglected supplementary nourishment to soils engineers afforded by rock engineering. Ingredients in the Lecture may include (at the whim of the chef): an analysis of high cut slopes, and characterization of weak rock masses using the Hoek-Brown Failure Criterion, “layered” on the basis of depth varying Geological Strength Indexes; description of the simple Geological Engineering basis for confidence in the rock mass stability of the walls of lava tubes caves during retrieval of a buried collection of unique Hawaiian cultural artifacts; and, why you should care about melanges and other block-in-matrix rocks (bimrocks).
An Introduction to the Use of Ground-Based Stereo Photography in Geopractice: In some situations three-dimensional (3D) perception is critical to efficient and accurate geological/geotechnical investigation. Taking and exploiting ground-based stereo photographs for personal use and geology and engineering consulting is easy and inexpensive. Stereo (3D) photos preserve records of site conditions for use in analysis back at the office, and allow a clear visual depiction of the site to audiences such as clients and juries. Examples of ground-based stereo images of terrain, landslides, gullies, distressed structures, and other features—as used in project-related analyses and presentations—demonstrate the considerable advantages in collecting and viewing site information as stereo images. Stereo glasses will be provided.
Forensic Investigation of the Sea Cliff Incident, an Urban Catastrophe: Shortly after midnight on December 11, 1995, storm water started to leak from a century-old 6-foot brick sewer underlying the prestigious Sea Cliff neighborhood in San Francisco. The leakage eroded vulnerable dune sand soil to create a pit that grew uncontrollably to over 250 feet wide and 40 feet deep. Shortly after dawn, a multi-million dollar home and portions of other properties fell into the pit, events that were broadcast by TV world-wide. Discharge from the sewer continued for several hours, resulting in the undermining of other homes, destruction of part of the Presidio National Park, and eventual overflow of sewage more than two miles away, across the Great Highway and Ocean Beach, into the Pacific Ocean. Dr. Medley, the Principal Investigator for the investigation, shares findings and the lessons learned from the failure.
Reflections and Snapshots from a 40 year Geo-Odyssey –“Shoot! This Has Been Delightful!”: With this typical enthusiastic comment from the late Professor Richard H. Jahns, Dr. Medley describes the highlights of his own unusual career as a prospector, geological engineer, geotechnical engineer and vagabond - a random walk of major life lurches, with several engaging detours. Pausing en route, Dr Medley offers some observations on the current state of engineering geology education and professional practice with (likely provocative) suggestions to academics, students and young professionals.
