This book examines the epistemological foundations of engineering geology. How its methods were built, what they can reliably tell us, and, crucially, what they cannot. Drawing on philosophy of science, the history of engineering practice, and original research at the intersection of geomechanics and epistemology, this book argues that the discipline’s most widely used empirical tools carry hidden limitations that are rarely made explicit and seldom taught.

Every engineering decision is an act of inference, a leap from what is known to what is assumed. In engineering geology, that leap is taken daily, often with confidence that the underlying methods do not fully warrant.

This is not a book about doing engineering geology differently. It is a book about thinking about it differently, about recognizing the boundaries of what we know, the assumptions embedded in the methods we trust, and the consequences of applying quantitative tools to problems that remain irreducibly uncertain.

Written for practicing engineers and geologists, graduate students, and anyone curious about how technical knowledge is constructed and applied under uncertainty this book offers something rarely found in engineering literature: a rigorous, accessible, and occasionally unsettling examination of the discipline’s own epistemological foundations.

Davide Elmo is a professor of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering at the NBK Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, where he has taught and supervised graduate research since 2012. He holds a Ph.D. in Geomechanics from the University of Exeter and a B.Eng. in Engineering Geology and Geotechnics from the University of Portsmouth, is a licensed professional engineer in British Columbia, and a fellow of the Geological Society of London. Before joining UBC, he worked as a rock mechanics specialist for Golder Associates (Vancouver, Canada), gaining extensive consulting experience on surface and underground mining projects across Canada, Australia, and South America. He remains professionally active, providing expert review and consultation on mining projects across Canada and internationally. His expertise has also been relied upon by the media in numerous interviews about geohazards and mining engineering.
The author’s research spans numerical modelling, discrete fracture network methods, and the characterization of rock bridges.