What the New ASCE 7-16 Seismic Design Standards Mean for You
Recent updates to seismic building standards by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) promise to bring changes to the engineering industry. The ASCE is the primary authoritative source for engineering standards in the United States. State and local jurisdictions often refer to ASCE standards for their building codes, and revised ASCE 7-16 guidance on […]
Report from the 2018 Underground Construction Conference
GeoEngineers employees Mark Miller, David Sauls, Jon Robison, and Gary Castleberry participated in the 2018 Underground Construction Technology (UCT) Conference last week in New Orleans, Louisiana. After the conference Mark answered some questions about what he gleaned from the conference and the current state of the industry, particularly trenchless technologies. Q: Tell me a little […]
The Dirt Podcast: Olympic Swimmer Nick Thoman on What it Takes to Win
A random meeting between GeoEngineers CEO Mike Hutchinson and Olympic Swimmer Nick Thoman jump-started a conversation on mastery, and we captured it on The Dirt Podcast. Nick talks to Mike about mastery, hard work and what it takes to succeed at such a high level—in sports, business or life. Nick won two world titles as […]
The Dirt Podcast: Swamp Buggy in Scriber Creek
Take a trip into a wetland to hear about an unusual drilling rig in the latest episode of The Dirt Podcast. Tim Bailey and his team used the swamp buggy, an amphibious drilling vehicle, to stage a geotechnical drilling investigation in the Scriber Creek Wetland, north of Seattle. It’s part of Sound Transit’s Lynnwood Link […]
Take a Stand for Science
On Saturday April 22, I will be participating in the March for Science in Tacoma. I have been involved in Earth Day celebrations since 1993 when I helped plan our local event at Tacoma Community College. I feel blessed every day to work as a geologist in my hometown of Tacoma. It’s where I grew […]
Air Quality Modeling: Solutions Through Simulation
Air quality monitoring and regulation is critically important, especially to potential sources of air pollutants such as the chemical, mineral and energy industries. Manufacturing these basic building blocks of our modern society requires the careful monitoring and control of air pollution. Maintaining government emission standards can be challenging, and the first step is accurately measuring […]
Precipitation and Landslide Occurrence
Rain always brings an increased risk of landslides, but extremely high precipitation rates throughout the Pacific Northwest in October have geologists, engineers and owners of vulnerable infrastructure on alert for geologic hazards. October typically receives a lot of rainfall, but last month’s rates were incredibly high. October is the start of the water year in […]
Yesterday’s Infrastructure, Tomorrow’s Technology: Thoughts from Ports 2016
I had the opportunity to present at the ASCE COPRI Ports ’16 conference earlier this week in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was presenting a paper on some work we did in the Port of Tacoma for a pier upgrade. “Existing Pile Foundation Evaluation for Pier Upgrade” was the official title, the sub-title would have been […]
Washout: Roads at Risk During Storm Events
Between March 8 and March 10, 2016 a large storm slowly made its way across North Louisiana. As this massive storm inched eastward, it dropped between 17 and 26 inches of rain on northern Louisiana. Such a large volume of rain caused significant and rapid swelling of the existing bayous, streams and rivers, which backed […]
Risky Air: The Threat of Chemical Vapor Intrusion
Soil and groundwater contaminated with volatile chemicals, such as fuels and cleaning solvents, can threaten the health of people in homes or other buildings above or near the contamination. Typical sources of volatile chemicals include gas stations, dry cleaners, underground storage tanks and other industrial sources. These forms of contamination bring many problems, but when […]