Something Called "The Object" Stops World's Largest Tunneling Machine

Gizmodo.com ^ | 20 December 2013 | Geoff Manaugh

[MHGinTN]

Wouldn’t it depend on how long ago it sunk? The silk muck must be variable depending upon time of siltification(?).

[Windflier]

Wouldn’t it depend on how long ago it sunk?

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?

[Sirius Lee]

Uh-oh. Only one thing explains that. They've hit the force field of a buried ancient spaceship.

They hit the lack of something, namely somebody else's much bigger and more technologically advanced tunnel. I'm betting on the space bugs.

[MHGinTN]

If the silt is agitated the heavy object would ‘settle’ into the silt further and further.

[Windflier]

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.