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Geotechnical

Comprehensive geotechnical services from site selection through construction

Geotechnical consultants grounded in your projects and your community

Innovation and hands-on practice come together in the people behind our geotechnical consulting services. We direct our engineering and scientific capabilities, from traditional to highly technical and specialized, toward solving our clients’ challenges and helping achieve their goals for project sustainability, quality, and efficiency.

As Terracon’s frontline and foundational business, we provide geotechnical services nationwide for a wide range of projects in the commercial, transportation and infrastructure, healthcare, industrial, logistics, federal, digital infrastructure, and power generation and transmission markets. As a geotechnical firm with over six decades of historical geotechnical data, a fleet of more than 200 drill rigs, 140 accredited laboratories, and thousands of employees, we can quickly organize or capture site data wherever your project is located. 

Our engineers intimately understand regional site conditions and the impacts on your project. In combination with resources nationwide, consulting with Terracon offers a vast knowledge base and connects you to responsive professionals near you and your project site. Our geotechnical experts are always connected and constantly communicating, so our individual expertise and recommendations complement each other to improve quality, sustainability, and most of all, your timeline.

Geotechnical Services include:

Geocake – A Smarter Approach to Site Exploration

How to Get Ahead of Site Challenges Without Setting Foot on the Site

Increase Your Speed to Market with Stage1

Understand site conditions through smart exploration

We use predictive technologies to give you all the upfront information you need in noninvasive ways. Our AI-supported geotechnical solutions provide more cost-effective preliminary site assessments in days rather than weeks and can help lower risks and costs while minimizing site disruption, allowing clients to make informed decisions. When intrusive exploration is required, our vast, well-maintained fleet of geotechnical drilling and cone penetrometer testing (CPT) rigs can accommodate your project needs. Our modern laboratories across the U.S. deliver rapid, accurate data from standard index testing to specialized soil and rock testing.

Stage1

With our breakthrough location intelligence software and without stepping on the site, we can help you determine if a site is right for your project. Stage1 gives you a preliminary site assessment based on our 60+ years of geotechnical project history and environmental and geologic data from more than 700 public and private map sources. The resulting report offers you a deeper understanding of potentially significant issues that could impact development and helps you minimize surprises and delays. 

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Geophysics

We have the largest near-surface geophysical team in the nation to serve you and your project. Whether Stage1 indicates complex subsurface conditions or if underground structures, contamination, or significant cavities are suspected during geotechnical site characterization, our team uses noninvasive methods to complement our consulting services. Our team can include using instrumentation such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), seismic refraction and reflection, 2D/3D electrical resistivity, and electromagnetic and magnetic surveys. 

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Intrusive site characterization

Traditional drilling, exploration, and in-situ techniques can help capture a more complete picture of your site’s subsurface. Collection of site-specific data is required to help manage risk, plan, design, and construct a project successfully. These techniques can be used in combination to give you the depth and precision needed to address complex geotechnical challenges and help you with regulatory compliance.

Visualization

Our client collaboration portal, Compass, gives you easy on-demand access to all your data, documents, and reports for projects past and present. Compass lets you explore our compilation of public database resources, including national subsurface maps to identify subsurface attributes, see where Terracon is performing work, and quickly view boring logs, exploration points, and monitor progress. The data we collect is compiled and may be visualized in 3D models to vividly demonstrate the variation in subsurface conditions.

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Geostructural engineering/GeoDesign

For your most challenging projects, you need specialized expertise, advanced analysis tools, local insights, and understanding of industry practices to develop and optimize site-specific designs. Clients benefit from our deep experience including specialty foundations, earth retention systems, earth and rock stabilization, ground improvement, dewatering, landfills, and performance monitoring using geotechnical instrumentation.

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140 +

laboratories

– largest network of accredited and validated labs of any U.S. geotechnical engineering firm

60 +

years

of subsurface exploration data from thousands of locations nationwide

200 +

drill rigs

– the largest geotechnical exploration fleet in the country

Curt Robinson
Preconstruction Project Manager Infinity Renewables

Terracon continues to lead the way in providing inexpensive, non-intrusive geotechnical services to the renewable energy development community.

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Suggested Services

Explore our landscape of lifecycle services, markets, products, and innovations.

Cause and Origin Diagnostic Investigations

Engineering investigation and analysis of a building component or system defect or failure to identify the cause(s) and recommend corrective measures to restore proper performance.

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Code Compliance and Specifications Review

Evaluating applicable building codes and specifications related to accessibility (ADA), safety, and efficiency to help clients’ projects achieve compliance.

Construction Stormwater Compliance

Verification of proper stormwater practices, identify changes, and recommend measures to minimize damage and restore compliance following weather or other events.

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Failure/Non-compliance Investigations

Investigation and analysis of failures or non-compliance of materials during construction to identify causes and contributing factors within the framework of applicable codes, standards, and regulations.

Geological Hazards

Assessment, exploration/instrumentation, and laboratory testing to identify geologic conditions and develop an approach to mitigate hazards that threaten the safety of infrastructure and other structures.

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Geotechnical Engineering and Foundation Design

Evaluating soil structure and potential impacts on project constructability and providing review or innovative designs to help save costs, and meet code standards and quality requirements.

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Groundwater/De-watering

Services focused on identifying, treating, and monitoring potentially dangerous water sources on a property, and establishing dewatering operations adhering to sediment, pollution, and other guidelines.

Materials technician reviewing information on a laptop in front of a construction site

Materials Selection Consulting

Recommendations for engineering/building materials to maximize performance, durability, and sustainability in the context of site geological, environmental, and other conditions.

Natural and Manmade Disaster Response

Planning, response, and recovery services to help address impacts of events such as flooding or fire and minimize risks to the public associated with a disaster’s aftermath, including damage to critical infrastructure.

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Observation of Foundation and Pavement Installation

Investigating on-site soil conditions and materials, and observation and monitoring during installation of foundations and pavements to help optimize performance and safety.

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Preliminary Environmental and Geotechnical Desktop Studies Based on Existing Proprietary and Public Data/Stage1

Actionable site analysis in about a week, including preliminary geotechnical, subsurface environmental, and natural/cultural resources data for quicker, cost-effective site comparison and assessment.

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Property Transaction Support

Repurposing Evaluations

Evaluation of a structure to determine safety, lifespan, and repurposing potential and provide recommendations about the feasibility and viability of remodeling or demolition of the structure.

Repurposing Feasibility

Inspection and evaluation to determine a structure’s safety, lifespan, and repurposing potential and provide recommendations about the feasibility and viability of repurposing or remodeling it.

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3 terracon team members having a discussion while wearing safety vests and hard hats

Resiliency Services

Consulting services to help organizations prepare to adapt to changes or disruptions that could adversely affect their employees or operations.

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Specialized Data Consulting and Analytics for Siting and Suitability Studies/Pivvot

Location intelligence that combines environmental, geotechnical, and other data into a map-based format to quickly assess renewable energy, power transmission, rail sites or routes.

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Sustainability Services

Guiding clients through the complexities associated with managing data, ESG reporting, and developing a strategy to meet Sustainability goals.

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Testing and Inspection of Construction Materials

Observation, testing, and inspection of materials including soils, concrete, masonry, asphalt, aggregates, structural steel, and even welds to determine conformance to specifications for quality and durability. Real-time project data with TARGETID technology.

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