Posted on 12/26/2013 5:02:00 PM PST by Windflier
Bertha, the world's largest tunneling machine, churning through the rock and mud beneath Seattle, has hit a mysterious roadblock—so mysterious, it is only known for now as "the object."
The New York Times reports that the machine—300 feet long and 5 stories tall—has ground to a halt. Built precisely not to be stopped by, well, just about anything, Bertha has apparently met her match. But what exactly is it? "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," the NYT writes.
It is something the managers on site "still simply refer to as 'the object.'"
Some hypothesize a colossal ice age boulder or two, locked down in the sediments beneath the city. Others think it might be "buried train engines."
Whether it's ice age super-rocks, buried trains, a lost city—or even a UFO—engineers might have to work "at atmospheric pressures similar to what a diver would experience," the New York Times adds, and even spend "time in a decompression chamber" on their way back up to the surface, to find out.
So what is it? What is "the object" blocking Bertha's path? Just look at the size of the tunnels it's been digging; whatever's in the way has got to be one tough mother.
Wouldn’t it depend on how long ago it sunk? The silk muck must be variable depending upon time of siltification(?).
I suppose so, but the conditions would also have to have been just right for a ship to sink through 80 feet of muck. I've never heard of a shipwreck doing that anyway. Can they?
They hit the lack of something, namely somebody else's much bigger and more technologically advanced tunnel. I'm betting on the space bugs.
If the silt is agitated the heavy object would ‘settle’ into the silt further and further.
I think it would take an awful lot of seismic activity over a very long time for a whole ship to sink 80 feet into the muck. Who knows? I guess it's possible.
Per the latest, they're supposed to be getting a team to inspect what's in front of the cutter head. It's gonna be interesting to see what the hold up is, no matter what it turns out to be.
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