A Few Basics about Geological Consulting in My Experience

I am helping people who may want a geological consultant and people who are geological consultants.  People hire geological consultants because they want to prove their side about some important part of natural resources.  A general definition of natural resources in this instance is "your property", that is ...land that you own or land that you want.  People employ Good Consultants, Not-So-Good Consultants or Bad Consultants.  In the short term, any of these three kind of consultants can be successful.  I have seen these three types of consultants at work. 

The Good Consultant.

The work of a good consultant, generally remains finished.  The project is organized and is well documented by reliable and sound geological literature and methods.  It goes well.  Reviewers, be they peer reviewers to the consultant or judges or hearings officers in municipal agencies, accept the work after examining it.  The above cross-section, for example, has carefully selected wells to cover needed information points for bedding contacts.  Deep wells are located near the fault to cover the down warping of the formations.  This information is "scientifically reproducible" because the State well numbers are included and the wells are spotted by field reconnaissance, as well as by record searching.

The Not-So-Good Consultant
The work of the not-so-good consultant is only opinion.  The work is "not-so-good" because opinion is often not supported by sound geological literature.  The work is therefore not buttressed by proven and published experience.  Being opinion, the not-so-good consultant's work is vulnerable to another opposing opinion and must yield in any public forum to opposing work by the good consultant.   Opinion can be disproven.

The Bad Consultant
Bad consultants come in all stripes.  The bad consultant operates naively or intentionally in error.  In my experience a bad consultant provides no justification by geological literature for the work.  Often the work product of the bad consultant is only Opinion.  There is no effort to document the methods used in geological literature.  Incorrect measurements and careless methods provide a thin covering for generalized and biased assumptions.  The Bad Consultant organizes reports poorly, technical arguments are unclear. Professional charges are inflated as much as ten times, because in one of the five times that the consultant is found out and legally prosecuted, the financial penalty is considerable.  Polite and firm criticism by a Good Consultant can rip apart Bad Consulting work.  Poor logic can be illuminated and the wrong conclusions turned back of the Bad Consultant and his/her clients.

I have learned from colleagues whom I respect that I want to work to be a Good Geological Consultant.  The work that I do for people stands for decades after I have done it.  This work will be one of the building blocks of careful and serious consulting work by other consults who will serve communities and towns with future needs.   Most future consultants will have no particular point of view concerning me.  They will only regard the worth of my work.  They will have scant regard for "not-so-good" consulting and will toss the bad consulting work as the rubbish that it is and they will have little to no regard for the geological consultants who do either product.