Under Seattle, a Big Object Blocks Bertha. What Is It?

The New York Times ^ | 19 Dec 2013 | Kirk Johnson

[Theoria]

A secret subterranean heart, tinged with mystery and myth, beats beneath the streets in many of the world’s great cities. Tourists seek out the catacombs of Rome, the sewers of Paris and the subway tunnels of New York. Some people believe a den of interstellar aliens lurks beneath Denver International Airport.

Now Seattle, at least for now, has joined that exclusive club.

Something unknown, engineers say — and all the more intriguing to many residents for being unknown — has blocked the progress of the biggest-diameter tunnel-boring machine in use on the planet, a high-tech, largely automated wonder called Bertha. At five stories high with a crew of 20, the cigar-shaped behemoth was grinding away underground on a two-mile-long, $3.1 billion highway tunnel under the city’s waterfront on Dec. 6 when it encountered something in its path that managers still simply refer to as “the object.”

The object’s composition and provenance remain unknown almost two weeks after first contact because in a state-of-the-art tunneling machine, as it turns out, you can’t exactly poke your head out the window and look.

[ConservativeChris]

Google Seattle, Bertha, Object, and you will find articles claiming it everything from an “Alien Reptilian Base” to a giant fossilized clam, hilarious.

It is interesting that an 80 million dollar, five story tall machine that has carbide teeth and is built to make a gigantic hole through rock gets stopped by anything. I would be embarrassed if I designed this behemoth and it was stopped by a mere boulder.

I vote for the clamosaurus.

[mowowie]

This what at the intersection of two suburban side streets one house down from her.
For months she couldn’t take a right out of her driveway only a left turn to the main road.

I watched them digging the hole for a long time but I wasn’t around when they actually pulled the thing up.
At the they were drilling a giant sewer pipe connecting western MA towns to the new treatment plant in Boston Harbor.
Poor Mr. Brown next door had his foundation and walls and ceilings pretty much destroyed from all the work out front.

[Jim Noble]

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah-nagl ftaghn

[blueunicorn6]

Decades of the hopes of Seahawks fans.

[Noumenon]

What you said.

[Cold Heart]

I would be embarassed if I used Google.

[NoCmpromiz]

The vault holding ...

Where's Geraldo?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

If it's a large granite erratic boulder and the boring machine has been ripping through shale, well, it could be time for some new diamond bits...

[Flick Lives]

...it encountered something in its path that managers still simply refer to as “the object.”

[BenLurkin]

Oddsmakers tab Seahawks as Super Bowl favorites
http://mynorthwest.com/292/2417023/Seahawks-listed-as-Super-Bowl-favorites

[dr_lew]

That's the first thing I thought of ... Ah, here we go ... Qg, Quaternary sediment, dominately glacial drift, includes alluvium.

It's that Alluvium that gets ya ... tough stuff!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Big pink boulders (glacial erratics) were common in the Twin Cities area. Down along the Minnesota River were reserves of beautiful sand, plus these really hard stones.
My step-dad referred to them as “harder than the hubs of Hell.” I never knew where those hubs were or how they got that way.

[JoeProBono]

[rdcbn]

A mother load vein of gold

[mykroar]

C.H.U.D.

[william clark]

Great monster from Flash Gordon

[LachlanMinnesota]

The spool to the space needle?

[Slyfox]

When Hillary was in the White House she got a sculptor to set up some of his earth mother goddess statues around the grounds.
The one closest to her office was one the staff named "Big Bertha." I always wondered where it went.

[CapnJack]

[Yardstick]

Seattle’s impacted wisdom tooth?