VPRS 19347 King Street Bridge Construction and Boring Records

This series contains records of the construction of the King Street Bridge in Melbourne in 1958, including logs of rotary and percussion drilling at the construction site, specifics of core samples from inside cylinders, including location and descriptions of geological material drilled, and reports on rock samples found during drilling. These records were logged by John Neilson, who joined the Geological Survey of Victoria (VA 4118) in 1954, and in 1958 provided geological assistance to civil engineers during construction of the King Street Bridge. There was a lack of available expertise in engineering geology at the time, and Neilson assisted in the construction of many major infrastructure projects in difficult ground conditions. He was later in charge of the Engineering Geology Section when it was set up by the Geological Survey of Victoria in 1963, due to an increasing number of development projects and growing demand for geological input. Boreholes are used during geotechnical investigation of proposed building sites in the early stages of construction, aiding in determining suitability of the chosen location and final design. Soil samples are collected through drilling in various sites within the proposed location for analysis on earth formation and strata. A borehole chart may show the different layers of soil at different depths and their properties. This data is necessary to determine appropriate foundation type for the build and may also be used to determine piling lengths as suitable for structural standards.