The Southern Saskatchewan (Regina) Section of the CGS hosted the 2020 Regina GeoCelebration on March 5, featuring keynote speaker Delwyn Fredlund presenting his "Personal Journey into Soil Mechanics for Unsaturated Soils". Del has devoted most of his career to researching the engineering behavior of unsaturated soils. It is a journey that has extended over 50 years. At the 2020 Regina GeoCelebration, he related some of his experiences from growing up on the semi-arid prairies of Saskatchewan to his ongoing involvement in advancing “unsaturated soil mechanics”.
The Southern BC (Vancouver) Section of the CGS held a 3-day short workshop from February 6th to 8th, 2020 on the practical application of critical state soil mechanics. The workshop was developed for the section five years ago and has now been taught in the US, Australia, South Africa, and Chile. The workshop was given by Mike Jefferies and Dawn Shuttle with assistance provided by Andrea Lougheed. It comprised four hands-on modules with half the time spent on hands-on computer work by participants. It covered laboratory testing, theory of soil behaviour and implementation in simple spreadsheets (from Cam Clay to NorSand), obtaining soil properties and determining the in-situ conditions. The workshop sold out in record time with 40 people attending from academia, contractors, consulting and owners. The teaching materials and software will be posted on the CGS Vancouver Section website.