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Environment and Environmental Geology Vol. 18 AUGUST, 1972 No. 3 ENVIRONMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL GEOLOGY Emil Onuschak, Jr. INTRODUCTION upon the environment. The ultimate goal of such legislation is to make consideration of environ- Present interest of the public in ecology and mental factors an integral part of overall project environment has been well-publicized. Until planning, and not just an afterthought. In this recently, the words ecology and environment were way, it is hoped, alternative courses of action will .I' seldom heard, but now there is a deluge of be considered and the true, total costs for any material concerning subjects ranging from di- proposed project will be determined. minishing natural resources and burgeoning pop- ulation to the desirability of preserving pleasing The first step in the growing public awareness landscapis. of environmental matters - the showing of need, or "cry of alarm" - is drawing a close, and a Public interest in environmental matters seems to to be more substantial than "just another fad". second step - investigation - is beginning. The For example, an increasing population, with in- investigation phase requires a complete and ac- curate inventory of available resources, which creasing demands for most everyday living items, is discovering the capabilities of the earth are includes gathering and compiling data, and de- veloping analytical procedures with which to finite and limited. Also, these limitations fre- evaluate the data. Such an inventory forms the quently affect the daily lives of individuals and basis for designing programs to achieve desired they are not just impersonal and theoretical. goals and making decisions necessary to imple- As a result, the public has shown a receptive- ment these programs. ness for environmental information and a grow- ing awareness of its importance. Rachel Carson, During the investigation phase, when headlines in her book, "Silent Spring" (1962), alerted the pass on to other topics and publicity tends to public to potential dangers resulting from unre- die away, some persons are tempted to conclude stricted use of pesticides, and Paul Ehrlich, in public interest has also died away, when, in reali- "The Population Bomb" (1970), pointed out some ty, this quieting down simply marks the transi- possible consequences of uncontrolled population tion from initial alarm to detailed, systematic, growth. Both books were best-sellers. Public and quantitative investigation. For, in instance awareness of environmental matters reached a after instance, initial interest in some environ- climax three years ago when the United States mental area not only showed what was known, but Congress passed Public Law 91-190, the National also what was not known. Growing environmen- Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which re- tal awareness spotlighted data gaps in many quires, among other things, a detailed statement fields, and geology was no exception. With'out of probable impact of all major Federal projects fully realizing it, geologists had become more and 18 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Vol. 18 more accustomed to talking solely with other ment came to them - they did not have to seek geologists. it out. From being feared, then worshipped, and finally ignored, Nature came to be recognized as EARLY GEOLOGY something to be accounted for in the plans of men. Geology began in a number of places, largely As long ago as 1273, men found if they wanted as a practical sort of thing, and, from this to live in cities as large as the London of that practical point of view it has always been day, it was deemed necessary to restrict the large- environmental. scale burning of coal to prevent undesirable air pollution (Cadle, 1970, p. 135). Even by that day, William Smith, an English surveyor and engi- man's ability to dirty the air in some areas had neer of the 1790's, found a persistent sequence of outstripped the capability of naturally-occurring rock strata along the route of the Somerset Coal processes acting to cleanse it. Canal in England, construction of which Smith was supervising (Adams, 1954, p. 269). The per- Today's cultures are even more complicated sistence of the strata made it possible to predict, and complexly interlocked. Barry Commoner, a prior to excavation, what sort of rocks would be biologist has stated this in his First Law of found along a section of the canal. This was use- Ecology : "Everything is connected to everything ful information. else" (Commoner, 1971, p. 33). Peter Flawn, a geologist, has stated there is simply less margin Early geologists, including Smith, studied for error in more and more of man's acti+ities fossils, the petrified remains of organisms which without producing disastrous, unacceptable re- are found in rocks. They soon learned identical sults (Flawn, 1970). In addition, diminishing fossils were one way to identify identical rock natural resources and increasing population make strata at widely separated localities, although the it necessary to use our resources as efficiently as other characteristics of the rocks were greatly possible. It is necessary to get the most use from different. The different characteristics of the the least resources. That is, utilization of re- rocks resulted from different events that had sources must be optimized. occurred in the past, but the identical fossils showed these events had taken place at the same DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL GEOLOGY time, In the early 1960's, as cities grew larger and Stratigraphy, the part of geology concerned covered more ground and the word megalopolis with the study of rock strata, was developed on was first heard, some geologists found application this sort of "time basis". That is, rock strata for their skills in large urban areas and thus everywhere were - and are - considered to be urban geology was born. Although urban geo- subdivided by surfaces called time planes. Ideally, logic studies proceeded, most of them seemed to a time plane is the same age everywhere and the attract little attention. rocks contained between two of them were all formed during the same interval of time. In ac- During this same period, developments in other tual practice, the planes are highly irregular sur- fields, such as biology, noted earlier, aroused faces that are both real and invisible. Various public interest in ecology and environment. In features in rocks are interpreted as indicating a 1965, the Illinois Geological Survey began publi- "time plane", but the "plane" itself is not seen. cation of a new series of "Environmental Geology Notes" and environmental geology it has been As these and other more complicated concepts ever since. This series of publications has the evolved, a specialized vocabulary evolved and stated purpose of informing ". engineers, pro- standard procedures for doing certain things were fessional planners, municipal, county, and state defined so that geologists could more readily com- officials, and other interested individuals about pare data. Unfortunately, as this specialization current work . in their fields, and to provide proceeded, direct communication of geologic in- . specific data and descriptive materials that formation to non-geologists decreased greatly. otherwise would be available only . ." to other geologists (Hackett and Hughes, 1965, Forward). EARLY ECOLOGY In other words, geologists rediscovered the fact As numbers of men increased and their cul- that they had something worthwhile to say to the tures grew more complicated and complex, they general public, and particularly to decision- found with increasing frequency that the environ.- makers who are not geologists. They now have No. 3 VIRGINIA MINERALS 19 to re-learn more effective communication with bility of other agencies such as zoning boards. a the general public. It is the geologist's responsibility to effectively An early example of effective communication communicate a complete and detailed geologic of geologic information is provided in a series of inventory to these persons, in their terms, so their publications from Baylor University (Flawn and decisions can be as knowledgeable as possible. A Burket, 1965). In these publications, accurate, few of the questions the geologist should be pre- but uncluttered, geologic maps are presented and pared to answer might be: How big is the de- form the basis for deriving various other kinds posit? What is the present (and projected future) of information. These accompanying "derivative demand for it? How valuable is it? How long maps" are designed so that nearly any layman will it take to exploit? Will exploitation cause any can understand the information they contain and undesirable effects, such as land subsidence or put it to immediate, personal use. The complete slumping? Will exploitation cause any effect on set of maps forms an inventory of the natural, other resources, such as ground-water? physical characteristics of the Waco, Texas area While being careful not to pre-empt the re- in easy-to-understand terms such as "high", sponsibilities of others, an environmental geolo- "low", "strong", "weak", and "moderate". At the gist should also be careful not to allow others to same time, care has been taken not to over- preempt his geologic responsibilities. There are simplify the maps and compromise their geologic many instances where only a geologist can con- validity. For those who need the information, tribute the critical information needed for a pro- precise definitions of all general terms are ject. In one instance, investigation of a dam included. failure in California, revealed the dam had been From 1965 to the present, environmental geo- built partly on an alluvial fan containing inter- logic publications have been increasing in num- bedded layers formed by mudflows. A mudflow ber and sophistication. Some new concepts have is a thick, viscous mixture of sediment and water been formulated and some old ones re-applied to that flows downhill until loss of fluidity causes it environmental geologic investigations. to stop. The remaining water slowly evaporates, leaving behind a distinctive sedimentary deposit Some geologists object to the term environmen- tal geology.
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