1939 – 2024
John Read graduated from Canterbury University with an MSc in Geology in 1964. His lasting professional legacy from 60 years of engineering geology practice for civil and mining primarily includes the Large Open Pits (LOP) Project, a programme of international research and technology transfer focused on rock slope stability in open pit mines. After launching the project in 2004, he co-edited and contributed to two of the five volumes of geotechnical practice published by the project since 2007.
John grew up in a farming family and attended boarding school in Christchurch. After an original intention to be a vet and completing a BSc majoring in Geology and Zoology, John’s interest in engineering geology was kindled after spending four months in the investigations section of the New South Wales Water Conservation and Irrigation Department (NSW Water) at the Wyangala dam enlargement west of Sydney and the availability of an engineering geology option in the Civil Engineering course. After completing a thesis on geological mapping in North Canterbury he moved to Australia and spent the next 10 years as an engineering geologist on civil engineering projects based in Port Moresby with the Bureau of Mineral Resources (1964 – 1967), and then Brisbane with Coffey and Hollingsworth (1968 – 1976). Water supply, highway investigation and infrastructure for mines projects around Australia, in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia were chief activities. He then shifted to Melbourne in 1977 joining the Metropolitan Board of Works as Superintending Geologist during construction of the Sugar Loaf and Thomson projects. Engineering geological methodologies continued to develop including interaction with Adelaide-based engineering geological review consultant Dave Stapledon.
1980 initiated a turning towards mining, when he became Superintendent engineering geologist responsible for slope design and geotechnical activities at the Bougainville Copper mine, a key site in the development of the Hoek-Brown failure criterion. It was the start of a long association with Evert Hoek, who was a review consultant for the mine and then based at Imperial College, London. In 1984, based on interest in concepts of reliability in engineering he pursued a PhD in geotechnical Engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA supervised by Milton Harr. On graduation in 1987 he joined Golder Associates in Atlanta, then in Seattle, with involvement in US underground nuclear waste disposal investigations and open pit metalliferous mine design tasks in Mexico, Chile and Papua New Guinea.
In 1990 he returned to Brisbane and set up a geotechnical practice John R Read Associates, specializing in open pit mine slope investigation and design tasks along with high-level peer review directed at assessing slope design and performance. In 1994 he joined CSIRO Exploration & Mining on a contract basis, with responsibility for developing and coordinating the Division’s mining research. While continuing his consultancy at the same time, contact with both research and practice highlighted an awareness of the lack of ongoing research in mining, in particular in open pit mining. Then current slope design methods, guided by publications from Hoek & Bray and CANMET from the 1970s, were considered outdated. This began a drive to initiate and co-ordinate a CSIRO research programme funded by major mining companies. Under his initiative and guidance success came in 2004 and the Large Open Pit (LOP) project (www.lopproject.com) formally commenced activities in 2005. The object was to complete research that provided material benefit for the sponsors, and the first publication ‘Guidelines for Open Pit design”, edited by John with Peter Stacey followed in 2007. The guidelines quickly became a well-regarded, practical, handbook in engineering geology and geotechnical engineering with application in civil engineering as well as mining. The 14-chapter book has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese and is currently underway to Chinese.
John retired from CSIRO and leadership of the LOP project in 2014. He continued to actively consult until 2019 after which he reduced the frequency of engagements, preparing several conference keynote addresses and addressing current issues, the last questioning aspects of limit equilibrium three-dimensional slope stability analysis mechanics. He was always a strong advocate of the basic understanding of the regional and site geology, application of this knowledge to form common sense geological and engineering geological models using relevant information with appreciation of data reliability or uncertainty including from rock strength and groundwater inputs. Clear communication underpins this process along with an awareness of new research and its application. For slope stability analysis this includes use of appropriate failure modes, and awareness of analysis pitfalls as illustrated in the slide in Figure 1.
Stability Analyses Do Nots
- Do not use the Hoek-Brown strength criterion for determining weak (<R2 and/or GSI≤25) rock mass strengths. Use Mohr Coulomb values (ex lab or back analyses)
- Do not rely on the Laubscher rock mass rating criterion (MRMR). MRMR values are not equivalent to GSI values as used in the Hoek- Brown strength envelope
- Do not plunge headlong into performing endless numerical stability analyses. Perform only when perceived failure mechanisms have been fully evaluated using common sense and limit equilibrium methods, and a need for such numerical studies has been demonstrated
- Do not rely on moment equilibrium solutions when utilizing limit equilibrium methods of slices codes. Large scale jointed rock slopes do not form rigid bodies that obey the laws of moment equilibrium
- Do not confuse the phreatic and piezometric surfaces when calculating pore pressure forces
- Phreatic surfaces – free ground water level within slope
- Piezometric surface – actual pressure head relative to a surface within the slope.
John had planned to make his final trip to New Zealand to attend the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE) annual conference in April 2024, to present a co-authored paper on slope stability related the new National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM). Unfortunately he was unable to travel and the paper was withdrawn from the conference; the paper being subsequently submitted for publication in the NZSEE Bulletin. John is survived by his wife, two daughters and five grandchildren. His younger daughter commented that she could not even tick “retired” on his death certificate – he would have been proud of that!
Stuart Read