Appendix C

The British Geological Survey and other

governmental Geological Surveys
A general account of the British Geological Survey, and the Divisions and Units within it
are comprehensively listed in the Annual Reports of the BGS. Up to 1983 the British
Geological Survey (BGS) was known as the Institute of Geological Sciences (IGS). Field
investigations for each region of the UK (for example, Scotland North Lowlands District)
are carried out by a team of geologists under the supervision of a District Geologist. In
addition, special investigations are the responsibility of a number of specialist units.
The national headquarters are at:
British Geological Survey,
Nicker Hill,
Keyworth,
Nottingham NG12 5GQ
Field staff at this office cover southern and central England. Local offices at Exeter,
Newcastle and Aberystwyth deal with south-west England, northern England and Wales.
There is a major regional office at:
Murchison House,
West Mains Road,
Edinburgh EH9 3LA
Field staff here cover Scotland, Northern Ireland (which also has a local office in Belfast)
and the northern part of the UK Continental Shelf.
Information about subsidiary offices (for example, in Belfast and Exeter) may be
obtained from these two centres. Local data, including unpublished 1/10560 field maps,
are deposited in local offices. Some specialist Units have their offices at Keyworth
(including the Engineering Geology Unit).
The objects of the BGS include the following:
(a) Preparation and keeping under revision the geological map of Britain and of its
surrounding seas. The standard scale of survey on land is 1:10560 or 1:10000. Maps
are published and sold of those areas where mining, special academic interest or other
activity produces a demand. The price (in 1984) of a 55 km2 map on a scale of
1:10560 was 8.45 from HMSO or its agents. A complete set of maps, including those
not available from HMSO, may be consulted at the appropriate BGS office by

Appendix C 283
arrangement. Photocopies of unpublished or out-of-print 6 in sheets may be obtained for
8.05 (in 1984) for National Grid sheets and 5.75 (in 1984) for County sheets (that is,
the older 23 mile2 sheets indexed by county boundaries). A range of geological maps,
some on smaller scales, others giving detail of certain information such as the nature of
superficial deposits is also published.
(b) Investigation by the methods of structural interpretation, geophysics and boring of the
subsurface geology of the UK and the British continental shelf. The activities of the
specialist Units include geophysical surveys on land and sea and the commissioning of
deep borings at localities of special interest.
(c) Conservation, correlation and interpretation of geological information made available
under statutory and other arrangements, derived from mining, quarrying, other
excavations, boring and prospecting work in Britain and its continental shelf. By law,
the logs of all mineral borings penetrating more than 100 ft (30 m) and water borings
more than 50 ft (15 m) below surface in the UK must be deposited with the BGS,
where they are held for five years on a confidential basis if so requested. This
information, excluding that which is confidential, is available to enquirers on an ad hoc
basis by arrangement. Because of the inclusion of material with different degrees of
confidentiality, it is not normally possible for complete files of bore records to be
placed at the enquirers disposal. A separate statute covers data from surveys carried
out by the petroleum industry in British waters. Geophysical and other data are
deposited with the two Continental Shelf units and the Marine Geophysics unit, and are
not immediately available; but under the Petroleum and Submarine Pipeline Act
(1975), the Department of Energy is empowered to release certain categories of data,
including well logs, six years after the granting of an Exploration Licence. Enquiries
should be made to the Petroleum Directorate, Department of Energy, Thames House
South, Millbank, London SW1, or to the Continental Shelf Division, British
Geological Survey, Keyworth.
(d) Application of the results to practical objectives. The BGS provides information and
advice to private commercial parties by publication and on a personal basis. The type
and quality of geotechnical information that might be made available from file, for
certain urban areas, is indicated by the Special Engineering Geology Sheet, Geology of
Belfast and District, 1971, on a scale of 1:21120 (3 in to 1 mile). A similar map of
Newcastle was published in 1976, and more recent ones include the Firth of Forth. The
Belfast map contains a contoured map of rock head, contoured thicknesses of the
estuarine clays (the most troublesome soil in the area for an engineer), and a table of
the geotechnical properties of the rocks. An account of the aims in making the map,
and of its use for preliminary investigations only, may be found in Wilson (1972).
Advice given and work done may be on a payment basis if there is a significant use of
staffs time or facilities. Charges may be made if work exceeds half a day of staff time,
but this would be quoted and agreed in advance.
The BGS is, however, unable to undertake a consultant role which might result in legal
controversy, that is, where it represented a private client in opposition to, or in
competition with, another. Its units undertake investigations and other consultative work
for Government departments, National Boards and local authorities, in some cases

Appendix C 284
automatically under statute, in others by special contract. The Ministry of Transport
refers all road projects within Britain costing over 1m to the BGS for geological
appraisal.
Activities of the BGS related to engineering projects have included:
(a) studies of a prospective site for a third London airport, and of a reservoir storage
scheme in the Wash, for the Department of the Environment;
(b) interpretation of marine boreholes for the Channel Tunnel project;
(c) preparation of maps of drift lithology and thicknesses at Irvine New Town;
(d) study of a zone of instability in the Severn Gorge for the Telford Development
Corporation;
(e) work on the stability of pit tips in Kent for the NCB; and
(f) assessment of potential sites for toxic and nuclear waste disposal.
A fuller picture of the practical contribution of BGS is given in Robbie (1972).
The organisation and statutory responsibilities of government Geological Surveys in
other countries are broadly similar to those of the BGS. Obvious major differences exist
for historical, geographical and political reasons. For example, in some of the Englishspeaking countries with federal systems of government, including the United States,
Canada and Australia, Geological Surveys funded by, and accountable to, individual
States exist side by side with a Federal Geological Survey. The relationship and division
of function between State and Federal Surveys vary from country to country. In general,
the State Surveys tend to devote their resources to more practical tasks related to
economic and other interests of the State. A Federal Surveys responsibilities
characteristically include the systematic surveying of the entire country and the
publication of a uniform series of geological maps with a standard stratigraphic
nomenclature. Since the three countries instanced have areas several times the size of
Britain, the basic scale of mapping is smaller to permit completion of the reconnaissance
survey in a reasonable time. Detailed surveys are also undertaken for special, usually
economic, reasons. Government Geological Surveys in Canada and Australia have
traditionally had a stronger economic bias, particularly as a service to their mining
interests, than the BGS, but this difference has narrowed in the last decade.
An account of government Geological Surveys in Australia is given by Johns (1976).
There are Geological Surveys of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania,
South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Nearly all of them predate the foundation of the Federal Survey in 1911. This is one of the five branches of the
Bureau of Geology, Geophysics and Mineral Resources. Its activities include systematic
mapping of the continent on a basic scale of 1:250000, and the exploration of the
continental shelf. Its headquarters are in Canberra. State and Provincial Geological
Surveys also exist in the United States and Canada, but they are relatively small
compared with the Federal Survey, the US Geological Survey and the Geological Survey
of Canada. The headquarters of the former are in Washington, and some of the important
activities are based at Denver and at San Francisco. Descriptions of the Geological
Survey of Canada and its responsibilities are available in Blackadar (1976), Lang (1970,
pp. 2702) and Zaslow (1975). The headquarters are in Ottawa.

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References and selected reading

Bazley, R.A.B. and P.I.Manning 1971. Belfast . Sp. Eng. Geol. Sheet 1:21120, Inst. Geol.
Sci.
Blackadar, R. 1976. The Geological Survey of Canada, past achievements and future
goals . Ottawa: Geological Survey of Canada.
Dearman, W.R., M.S.Money, R.J.Coffey, P.Scott, and M.Wheeler 1977. Engineering
geological mapping of the Tyne and Wear conurbation, N.E. England. Q. J. Engng
Geol . 10 , 14568.
Johns, R.K. (ed.) 1976. History and role of government Geological Surveys in Australia .
South Australia: A.B.James, Govt Printer.
Lang, A.H. 1970. Prospecting in Canada . Ottawa: Geological Survey of Canada.
Robbie, J.A. 1972. The Institute of Geological Sciences and the Scottish environment.
Proc. 24th Int. Geol. Congr . 13 , 5563.
Wilson, H.E. 1972. The geological map and the civil engineers. Proc. 24th Int. Geol.
Congr . 13 , 836.
Zaslow, M. 1975. Reading the Rocks: the story of the Geological Survey of Canada
18421972 . Ottawa: Macmillan.