Increasingly, geotechnical engineering analysis of project sites for major civil or mining projects are being based on analysis of database compilations and GIS summarizations of collected field program information, but without rigorous geological structural domaining having been undertaken to subdivide the project site into realistic geological entities. This paper outlines the basics of Domain Characterization of a project area rockmass, recommending that assessment should always be two pronged – (i) domain scale, and – (ii) engineering structure scale; as rockmass characteristics are typically never the same at these two scale extremes. Geological simplification and coalescing of engineering characteristics and data into a sympathetic geological framework per area of a project site is what is missing today in innumerable projects. This paper attempts to set out methods and guidelines to help resolve this ongoing industry-wide problem.
