Free Geological Tools

These are simple interactive tools that explore real geological and geotechnical concepts through visual physics. Each one is built to help geologists, students and engineers understand what is mechanically possible and what is not.

Seismic Interpretation Sandbox

A lightweight experimental viewer for testing geometric interpretations and cartoon seismic ideas.

Under construction.

Road Cut Design Sandbox

An interactive planar slope calculator that shows how bedding dip, friction and pore pressure influence stability. Includes a real time Mohr diagram and a visual road cut section.

Try it here.

The AVO Sandbox

A 1D elastic laboratory for exploring how reflection amplitudes respond to changes in rock and fluid properties. Version 1D lets you manipulate contrasts, angles, depth, noise and lithology to see Shuey, Aki Richards and Fatti responses update in real time. Built to reveal what the classic approximations capture, where they break, and how elastic behaviour actually deforms under perturbation. A simple space to experiment, question assumptions, and build true AVO intuition.

Try it here

Road Cut Stability Climate Sandbox 

Interactive modelling tool designed to explore how changing rainfall regimes associated with climate change can affect the stability of road cuts.

The sandbox combines simplified slope stability mechanics with a transparent hydrological response model to show how a road cut that is stable under present climate conditions can become marginal or unstable as rainfall becomes more intense and more persistent. Geometry and material properties are kept explicit and adjustable, while rainfall statistics are varied to represent current, mid-century, and end-of-century climate scenarios.

Rather than providing site-specific predictions, the sandbox focuses on mechanisms. It illustrates how storm clustering, impaired drainage during very wet periods, pore pressure activation, and loss of unsaturated strength can interact to reduce safety margins over time. Stability is evaluated both deterministically, through the factor of safety, and probabilistically, through Monte Carlo estimation of failure probability.

The tool is intended for exploration and learning. It allows users to test assumptions, examine thresholds, and understand why risk can increase long before collapse occurs. The Road Cut Stability Climate Sandbox is not a replacement for detailed geotechnical analysis, but a way to reason about climate sensitivity, uncertainty, and failure regimes in engineered slopes.

Try it here

Tunnel Geology and Stress Explorer

This interactive tool is a compact learning sandbox for connecting geological interpretation to geotechnical tunnelling decisions. It visualizes a simplified subsurface model, places a tunnel within it, and then shows how groundwater, structure, rock mass quality, and in situ stress translate into expected deformation, settlement, and construction risk.

The geology is represented as a lithostratigraphic stack with adjustable dip, thickness, and number of layers. A fault or shear zone can be introduced, with user controlled offset, to show how a discrete geological discontinuity can disrupt stratigraphy and locally increase hazard. A groundwater table is drawn across the section and used to estimate pore pressure at tunnel axis depth, so the model makes the effective stress idea tangible rather than abstract.

The tunnel geometry is configurable, and the excavation can be explored conceptually through two common approaches, NATM and TBM. The tool does not attempt to produce design values. Instead it focuses on causality: longer rounds in weaker rock and higher pore pressures reduce face stability, which then increases convergence and settlement and reduces productivity. Support class shifts the response by changing an effective stiffness and strength factor, illustrating why support is not a decoration but a controlling parameter in the mechanical system.

Three diagrams are included. “Before” shows the lithostratigraphy, groundwater, and planned tunnel position. “After” adds the excavation, a schematic lining, a disturbed zone around the opening, and a settlement trough at the surface to highlight typical ground response signatures. “Stress” provides a qualitative map of stress concentration around the opening and indicates the direction and magnitude of vertical and horizontal in situ stresses through principal stress arrows. This is meant to help build intuition about why stress redistribution matters even when the geology looks simple.

A step advance button lets the user simulate incremental progress and introduces occasional probabilistic events such as instability, overbreak, or inflow, particularly when stability is low, groundwater is high, or a structural zone is present. The event log functions as a didactic reminder of how tunnelling is managed in reality through observation, monitoring trends, and adapting method and support as ground conditions reveal themselves.

This sandbox is intended for students, geoscientists, and engineers who want a fast way to rehearse the link between geological models and engineering consequences, and to practice the language of observational method thinking before stepping into a tunnel project.

Try it here