Quartär und Ingenieurgeologie in der Schweiz

Abstract. Engineering geology problems very often concern quaternary Sediments or the underlying surface of bedrock formed by glacial erosion. To get enough information for building, road construction, tunnelling etc.. a tremendous amount of information has been collected during the last 30 years in Switzerland including detailed geological mapping, boreholes, laboratory tests, and data on groundwater. Why did not our knowledge of the Quaternary get more adavantages from all this activity? Two examples shall demonstrate that engineering geology has priorities very different from those of quaternary stratigraphy. It is therefore extremely difficult to get Support for purely scientific research from the assignor of a building contract. However, better Cooperation between engineering geology and quaternary sciences would be helpful to everybody concerned.