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Book review |
TRL Limited, UK
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Fred Bell is a distinguished academic of wide ranging experience who has written or edited over 20 books. His speciality is site investigation and foundation engineering.
There have been many books written on engineering geology but this book is more comprehensive and wide ranging than most. The emphasis is very much on the techniques and application, and the consequences of, the practice of engineering geology in the natural world. The book is strongly bound on good quality paper and has nearly 800 pages of fine print containing detailed discussion on eleven principal subjects. The subjects covered include land evaluation and site investigation; methods of surface excavation and the slope stability of excavations; sub-surface excavation and tunnelling techniques; the construction of routeways (road, rail and bridges); the technology of reservoir and dam construction; hydrogeology and water engineering; waste disposal including radioactive waste and restoration of derelict land; and the properties of industrial minerals. Prof Bell says that his book is for the professional rather than the student and I would agree with this although it would be a very useful addition to the University library since it covers such a wide range of subjects. Each chapter is in a largely narrative style supported by several pages of up-to-date references, an impressive feature of the book, which enables the interested reader to pursue a subject further. There is a wealth of theoretical information in the narrative with several examples of case histories. However, because it condenses so much information, the prose tends
