Geotechnical properties are the properties of an object, such as soil, sand, rock, minerals, or any other material that is geologically classified, that can describe many different behaviors and technical qualities of a specific material.

These properties allow an engineer to determine the suitability of a material for specific uses or excavation methods in mining, construction, and site preparation. Geotechnical properties can either be descriptive or interpretive:

• Descriptive properties are properties that include strength, density, grain size, sorting, cohesion, discontinuities, resistivity, permeability, and storage capacity amongst others. These properties tend to describe the material in quantitative terms. Descriptive properties allow a material to easily be classified in a certain category.
• Interpretive properties of material include its relative erodibility, excavation difficulty, moisture sensitivity, foundation support and common uses. These properties tend to illustrate how the material interacts with the local environment and are more qualitative in nature than the descriptive properties.

Understanding a particular material’s geotechnical properties is extremely important in many areas of the mining industry. This is because decisions in all phases of the mining operation depend on the behavior and technical characteristics of the material surrounding the mine site and how the soils, rocks, and ore will be affected during excavation, operation, and reclamation. Geotechnical properties are also taken into account during mineral processing system design as well as in many civil engineering disciplines.