The European Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference (EYGEC) is an annual European conference for young geotechnical engineers (under 35) working in academia or practice, under the auspices of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The 27th EYGEC recently took place in Bodrum, Muğla province, Turkey (26th and 27th September 2019). NUI Galway and iCRAG (Geohazards and Geotechnical Engineering spoke) research Masters student Megan Dolan was one of two delegates chosen to represent Ireland at the conference, on the basis of a national qualifying competition organised by the Geotechnical Society of Ireland in December 2018. Normally, the Irish delegates at EYGEC conferences are PhD students nearing completion or practitioners with several years’ experience, so Megan’s selection in her first year of Masters study reflected very positively on her progress.
Megan’s presentation at the conference was entitled “Viséan Limestone, Karst and the N6 Galway City Ring Road, Western Ireland”. In her research, she has used an integrated approach, involving structural geology, geophysics, petrography, sedimentology and palynology, to resolve the nature and timing of a deep infilled doline along the proposed route of the Galway City Ring Road. Megan’s supervisory team at NUI Galway comprises Dr. Bryan McCabe (Civil Engineering) and Dr. John Murray, Dr. Tiernan Henry and Dr. Eve Daly (Earth and Ocean Sciences), with Geological Society Ireland and Arup Consulting Engineers also supporting the project. Megan hopes to submit her Masters thesis before the end of this year.