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 roadblockso mysterious, it is only known for now as "the object."
The New York Times reports that the machine300 feet long and 5 stories tallhas 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 sayand all the more intriguing to many residents for being unknownhas 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 cityor even a UFOengineers 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.
That thing should do igneous, albeit slowly. It may be that it has the wrong teeth mounted on it for lots of igneous though (that was run into at a tunnel project nearby, and the machines needed to have something like 1500 teeth each switched out at ~$750 apiece).
If it ran into something like a big ole nickel iron meteorite, now THAT would be cool... Or a monster hunk of native copper, the maleability of which is a b***h on boring and cutting tools I hear.
Hadals...
Yea, the tunnels are usually pressurized to keep water to a minimum.
Good questions. I know cities sometimes dig deeper tunnels for drainage, but I wouldn’t think they would be deep enough to need decompression.
Brilliance!
I had to look up your reference - is the book any good? The synopsis sounded pretty cool...
You know there are some crazy people that think that the supply of igneous rock is not all ancient, and that it is even still being created today? These whacko “abiogenic” igneous rock theorists really need to be silenced, because the consensus has spoken.
Indeed, the science is settled.
But if that were true they'd have to disband the Organization of the Igneous Exporting Countries (OIEC).
It might even extend the life of the modern piston engine, even though it gives off dust as a waste product.
You are off a bit. It isn’t drilling under Elliot Bay. It is drilling under some of the regrade in old low land areas of Seattle and under First Hill and Denny.
I wish they’d tunnel under the damn Sound and sell all the damn ferry boats. We on the Peninsula are held as mobility hostages. It costs either 15.00 to cross the Sound in your car and driver or 5.50 toll over a bridge to Tacoma! A tunnel makes more sense even in an earth quake zone. We can engineer it to be safe.
“The Lords Cotter Pin”...
Oh, I loved it, and apparently there is a follow up. It’s a rolic, and it wasn’t difficult to “suspend disbelief” even as a geologist. It was total “Gods, Glyphs, and Graves” ping list type SciFi.
Well, I will see if I can find a copy. I love Gods, Glyphs, and Graves stuff!
Many guesses on whit it could be butt I believe it is one of two things:
MOOCHELLES’s Ass
Sasquatch Hut
Either way works though.
Good one. I had to look it up. My favorite Zep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWOuzYvksRw
The cover and inside sleeve of this album, created by Hipgnosis, features various images of people interacting with a black obelisk-shaped object. Inside the album sleeve, the item is referred to simply as “The Object.” It was intended to represent the “force and presence” of Led Zeppelin.[2] In the liner notes of the first Led Zeppelin boxed set
This most likely a story made up by the producers of the reality show filming the tunneling.
I remember watching that movie as a kid. A creepy mix of Brit sci-fi and gothic horror.
It is digging under Elliot Bay? I Thought it was digging directly under the middle of Seattle.
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