Soils and Rocks, Engineering Geology and Rock

Mechanics, Structure and Composition of the

Earth, Minerals and Mineralogical Analysis,
Rock Formations and Types

Dr Sanjay Kumar Shukla

School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Australia

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Earthen Materials
 The materials that constitute the earth’s crust
are arbitrarily divided by the civil engineers into
the following two categories:
 Soil
 Rock
 Waste materials such as fly ash, bottom ash,
etc. are also considered as earthen materials as
far as the mechanics related to their applications
are concerned.

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What is soil?
 Soil comprises all materials in the surface layer of the
earth’s crust that are loose enough to be normally
excavated by manual methods using spade or shovel.
 Soil is a natural aggregate of mineral grains that can be
separated by such gentle mechanical means as agitation
in water.
 Soil contains three components (phases), namely, air,
water and solid matter.
 The air content of a soil has little engineering
significance.
 The water content influences the engineering properties
of a soil.

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What is rock?

The following common sayings and slogans

carry an implied definition of rock.

“Those who live in glass houses should not

throw stones.”

“Build your house upon the rock.”

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Definition of rock by Emery (1966)
 Rock is a granular material composed
of ‘grains and glue’. There is nothing
else involved.
 Sometimes, grains may have
mechanical bond.

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Engineers’ definition of rock

 Engineers view rocks as naturally

occurring, hard, strong, earth
materials which require blasting to
excavate and are permanent and
durable for engineering applications.

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Geologists’ definition of rock?

 Geologists view rocks as earth

materials produced by one or more
natural, rock-forming processes.

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Engineering geologists’ definition of
rock?
 Engineering geologists observe rocks
from both engineers’ and geologists’
views.

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Architects’ definition of rock?

 Architects view rocks as type of

building materials or dimension
stones to enhance beauty or to
project an image.

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Agriculturists’ definition of rock

 Agriculturists view rocks as parent

materials from which natural
processes produce soils.

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Common geologic definition of rock?

 All rocks have a common geologic

basis and therefore common geologic
definition:
Rocks are natural earth materials
composed of aggregates of one or
more minerals, regardless of the
mechanical properties of the mineral.

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Distinction between soil and rock

 How will you do it?

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Nature of rocks
 A rock exerts a considerable
resistance to separation of individual
particles and/or its component parts.
 A rock has no definite chemical
composition.
 A rock differs from soil in the degree
of consolidation and in the limit of the
size of the particles.

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Nature of rocks
 Rocks are firm and coherent or consolidated
substance that can not normally be
excavated by manual methods using spade
and shovel.
 Most rocks are not sound; they are neither
homogeneous nor isotropic.
 Many rocks have preferred particle and
crystal lattice.

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Nature of rocks

 Unlike steel, bricks, concrete, etc., rocks are

naturally occurring materials and must be
used in its natural state, in spite of certain
defects/weaknesses/discontinuities in rocks.
 Microfissures/planar cracks in hard rocks are
common.

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Rock core sample just after immersion in water

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Anisotropy
 Anisotropy is common in many rocks even without
discontinuous structures because of preferred
orientations of mineral grains or directional stress
history.
 Rocks are highly directional/anisotropic in their
deformability, strength and other properties.
 Even rock specimens apparently free from bedding
structures such as thick-bedded SST and LST may
prove to have directional properties because they were
subjected to unequal principal stresses as they were
gradually transformed from sediment into rock.

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Nature of rocks

• Rocks react differently to forces in different

directions, depending upon the degree of
anisotropy.
• Due to presence of discontinuities, most rocks
are non-ideal in many ways. Even presence of
micro-discontinuities results in non-ideal
behaviour.
• Mechanically, rocks are extremely complex
material, and so for engineers, it is difficult to
work with.

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Nature of rocks

 In rock structures, the applied loads are often

less significant than the forces deriving from
redistribution of initial stresses.
 Determination of material strength requires
as much judgment as measurement.

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Ideal Materials

 Homogeneous; continuous; isotropic (non-

directional in properties), linear, elastic
 It is simple to formulate the mechanical
behaviour of ideal material.
 Soil can be assumed to be an ideal material.

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How can we work with rocks?

 Despite all problems with rock as an engineering

material; it is possible to support engineering
decisions with the meaningful tests, calculations
and observations.
 Simplifying assumptions are needed to have
simple formulation of the mechanical behaviour
of rocks having discontinuities.
 To a large extent, the behaviour of all
assumptions lies in the composition and
structure of the rock.

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Bedrock and overburden
 A formation at some depth beneath a mantle
of unconsolidated material/soil is termed
bedrock, and the unconsolidated material/soil
above as overburden.
 Bedrock is also exposed to the surface of the
earth (ground surface).
 The bedrock exposed to the ground surface
is basically dry, solid rock.

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Rock Mass, Rock Substance and Intact
Rock/Rock Material
 Rock mass is the in situ rock made up of the rock
substance plus structural discontinuities (joints, bedding
planes, fissures, cavities etc.). Rock masses are
generally heterogeneous.
 Rock substance is the solid part of the rock mass
typically obtained as a drill core.
 An intact rock is a rock material which can be sampled,
and tested in the laboratory, and which is free from the
larger-scale structural features such as joints, bedding
planes, fissures, cavities, etc.

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Rock Structure
 The nature and distribution of structural
features/discontinuities within the rock mass is
known as rock structure.
 Rock structure can have a dominant effect on
the response of a rock mass to civil and mining
engineering operations.

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Subjects that deal with rocks

 Engineering Geology
 Rock Mechanics
 Rock Engineering

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Geology

 It is the science which treats the history of the

earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the
changes which it has undergone or is
undergoing.
 In short, geology is the science of rocks and
earth processes.

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Engineering geology

 It is the science concerned with putting geologic

knowledge to practical uses in an economic way.

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Rock Mechanics

 It deals with the response of rock to the force

fields of its physical environment.
 It is the mechanics of discontinuum.
 Knowledge of principles of rock mechanics are
required for design of engineering structures in
rock.

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Rock Engineering

 It deals with the engineering application of the rock

mechanics along with application of engineering
judgment for the solution to the problems caused by the
activities in rock.
 It is closely allied with rock mechanics and engineering
geology.
 It includes some aspects, which are not considered in
other fields of applied mechanics, such as fluid
mechanics, soil mechanics, and solid mechanics.

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Special aspects considered in Rock
Engineering
 Geological selection of sites rather than control of
material properties.
 Measurement of initial stresses.
 Analysis through graphics and model studies, of multiple
modes of failure.

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Structure of the earth

Sivakugan, N., Shukla, S.K. and Das, B.M. (2013). Rock Mechanics – An Introduction. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, Boca
Raton, Florida, USA 31
Structure of the earth

 The shape of the earth is commonly described as a

spheroid. It has an equatorial diameter of 12,757.776 km
and a polar diameter of 12,713.824 km.
 The total mass of the earth is estimated as 5.975 × 1024
kg, and its mean density as 5520 kg/m3.
 The earth is composed of three well-defined shells:
crust, mantle and core.

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Crust
 The topmost shell of the earth is crust, which has a
thickness of 30-35 km in continents and 5-6 km in
oceans.
 The oceanic crust is made up of heavier and darker
rocks called basalts compared to light-coloured and light-
density, granitic rocks of the continental crust.
 When expressed in terms of oxides, the crust has silica
(SiO2) as the most dominant component, its value lying
above 50% by volume in oceanic crust and above 62%
in the continental crust. Alumina (Al2O3) is the next
important oxide varying between 13 – 16%.

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Basalt

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Granite

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Mantle
 The zone of materials lying between crust and a depth of
2900 km as mantle.
 It is made up of extremely basic materials (very rich in
iron and magnesium but quite poor in silica).
 The mantle is believed to be highly plastic in nature.

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Core
 The innermost structural shell of the earth known as core
starts at a depth of 2900 km below the surface and
extends right up to the centre of the earth at 6370 km.
 The materials of the core, probably iron and nickel
alloys, are believed to have no shear resistance which
makes it nearer to a liquid; it has a very high density,
above 10,000 kg/m3 at mantle-core boundary.

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Minerals
 A mineral is defined as a natural, inorganic substance
composed of one or more elements with a unique
chemical composition, arrangement of elements
(structure), and the distinctive physical properties.

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Minerals - Calcite

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Minerals - Topaz

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Minerals - Quartz

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Minerals - types
 Rock-forming minerals (Silicates: quartz, feldspars,
amphiboles, pyroxenes, micas, garnets, olivine, clay
minerals; Carbonates: calcite, dolomite)
 Minerals of economic value (Haematite, magnetite,
bauxite, etc.)

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Minerals - types
 Primary minerals, formed as products of consolidation of
magama lying underneath the surface of the earth.
 Secondary minerals, formed due to operation of
secondary processes on the surface subsequent to the
consolidation of magama.

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Minerals - types
 Native minerals like gold, silver, copper, sulphur and
carbon
 Sulphides
 Oxides and hydroxides
 Halides
 Carbonates, nitrates and borates
 Sulphates, chomates, molybdates and tungstates
 Phosphates, arsenates and vanadates
 Silicates

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Silicates
 Silicate minerals form the bulk (around 95%) of the
Earth’s crust. Of these silicates minerals, quartz and
feldspar are the most common ones in the crust. With
increasing depth (for instance in the mantle region), the
minerals are of Fe, Mg silicates such as the pyroxenes
and olivines.

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Sequence of Crystallization of Minerals in
Magma: Bowen’s reaction series

Sivakugan, N., Shukla, S.K. and Das, B.M. (2013). Rock Mechanics – An Introduction. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, Boca
Raton, Florida, USA 46
Minerals: coal and petroleum
 Coal and petroleum, though of organic origin, are also included
among minerals.
 Almost all minerals are solids; the only exceptions are mercury,
water and mineral oil (oil petroleum).

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Study of Crystals
 Crystals are solid geometric figures and have well-
defined, more or less plan faces, which bound the solid.
 Within the mineral kingdom, 98% of the minerals are
crystalline.
 A mineral possessing both, the external form and
internal atomic structure, is said to be a perfect crystal.
 A mineral possessing only the internal atomic structure
without the development of external form is called
crystalline.
 A mineral which is neither perfect crystal or crystalline is
known as amorphous substance.

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Crystal systems

Blyth, F.G. H. and Freitas, M.H. de (1984). A Geology for Engineers. 7th edition, Elsevier, London.
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Physical properties of minerals
 Colour
 Streak (colour of its powder)
 Hardness
 Cleavage (tendency to break down along a particular direction)
 Fracture (character of broken surface in a direction other than
cleavage direction)
 Luster (appearance in reflected light)
 Specific gravity
 Odour
 Taste
 Feel

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Rocks
 A rock is a naturally formed aggregate mass of mineral
matter, whether or not coherent, consisting an essential
and appreciable part of the earth’s crust.

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Rock forming processes
 Cooling of molten material called magma,
 Settling, depositional or precipitation processes, and
 Heating or squeezing processes.

The above three processes form the basis for rock

classification and are also significant factors in establishing
the mechanical properties of rocks.

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Rock types
 Igneous rocks
 Sedimentary rocks
 Metamorphic rocks

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Igneous rocks
 Rocks derived from magma are called igneous rocks,
which are usually hard and crystalline in character.
 Igneous rocks make up about 95% of the volume of the
earth’s crust.
 Examples: granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, syenite
basalt, rhyolite, andesite.
 The silicates are the common igneous rock forming
minerals. There are six of them: feldspar/orthoclase,
quartz, amphiboles, pyroxenes, micas and olivine.

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Igneous rocks
 Igneous rocks are also known as primary rocks, since these were
the first formed rocks on the surface of the earth.
 The characteristics of the igneous rocks are controlled by two basic
factors: the rate of cooling, and the chemical composition of the
magama. Rapid cooling precludes the growth of crystals, while slow
cooling allows their growth.
 The igneous rocks produced due to rapid cooling of magma upon
the surface of the earth are known as extrusive igneous rocks,
whereas those formed underneath the surface of the earth due to
slow cooling are known as intrusive igneous rocks. Examples:
Basalt, rhyolite, and andesite are extrusive igneous rocks, and
granite, dolerite, gabbro and syenite are intrusive igneous rocks.

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Igneous rocks
 Field observations of igneous rocks are very important for
determination of structure and extent of exposed rock mass.
 Geological maps and satellite imageries are useful for determination
of mode of occurrence of rocks in the field.
 In civil engineering constructions, particularly for large structures,
the extent and occurrence of igneous rocks must be known.

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Weathering
 The exposed rocks at the surface of the earth are subject to
continuous decay, disintegration and decomposition under the
influence of certain physical, chemical and biological agencies; this
phenomenon is called ‘weathering of rocks’.
 Temperature variations through a cycle of freezing and thawing of
water in the openings inside the rocks mass in the cold humid
climates, and thermal effects in hot dry (arid) regions are
responsible for physical/mechanical weathering of rocks.
 The rain water causes chemical weathering of rocks because of the
chemical action of dissolved atmospheric gases (carbon dioxide,
hydrogen, nitrogen, etc.).
 The organisms (burrowing animals, such as earth-worms, ants and
rodents) and plants also cause degradation of rocks through their
physical actions. Human beings also degrade rocks by various
activities.

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Sedimentary rocks
 The products of weathering are subjected, under favorable
conditions, to transportation mostly by natural agencies such as
running water, wind, glaciers and gravity, deposition, and
subsequent compaction/consolidation, resulting in sedimentary
rocks.
 Examples: sandstone, shale, conglomerate, breccias, limestone,
coal and evaporates.
 Minerals forming the sedimentary rocks are: kaolinite, illite, smectite,
hematite, rutile, corundum, calcite, dolomite, gypsum, halite, etc.

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Metamorphic rocks
 Rocks which have undergone some chemical or physical change
subsequent to their original form are called metamorphic rocks.
 The process by which the original character/form of rocks is more or
less completely altered is called metamorphism. This is mainly due
to four factors: temperature, uniform pressure, directed pressure and
access of chemically active fluids.
 Metamorphism brings: changes in mineral composition, changes in
texture of rock or change in both.
 Examples: quartzite, slate, marble, graphite, gneiss, anthracite.
Common metamorphic minerals are: serpentine, talc, chlorite,
kyanite, biotite, hornblende, garnet, etc.

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Rock cycle
 In nature, one type of rock changes slowly to another type.
 At the surface of the earth, igneous rocks are exposed to weathering
resulting in sediments, which may become sedimentary rocks due to
hardening or cementation.
 If sedimentary rocks are deeply buried, the temperature and
pressure may turn them into metamorphic rocks.
 Intense heat at great depths melts metamorphic rocks and produces
magma, which may rise up and reach the earth’s surface where it
cools to form igneous rocks.

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Rock cycle

Sivakugan, N., Shukla, S.K. and Das, B.M. (2013). Rock Mechanics – An Introduction. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton,
Florida, USA 61
THANK YOU!

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