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.
“...change cutters and resume boring but I know it isn’t so simple.”
Not so simple or cheap, especially if there’s Union labor involved.
drain plug for puget sound?
It’s a Chinese boring machine.
They’ll have to back it up and send in minors with explosives I guess. Do some digging the old-fashioned way until they are clear again.
It ran into Obama’s ego!
Is that “Snakes in a drain?”
“They’ll have to back it up and send in minors with explosives I guess.”
When I first read that, my leaky old brain read ‘minors’ and children. I thought, yeah, that’ll work.
Then I thought, hey! Why didn’t we have fun jobs like that when I was a kid!
They never would have started the project unless their equipment had the capability of grinding its was through igneous rock. That's what makes this story so intriguing.
What could they possibly have run into that's too hard for Bertha to grind through? Or is it that they don't want to damage whatever it is they've found?
5 MILLION YEARS TO EARTH Movie released IN 1967 Originally seen as QUARTERMASS AND THE PIT ON BBC
London, Martian spaceship landing, Devils Lane. Tunnel construction interrupted. Then all hades breaks loose. Good movie but not seen in some time. Grasshoppers anyone?
Maybe they have his real birth certificate ?
Probably just a matter of having the right cutters. Sort of like the difference between a wood and metal saw.
...not.
Interesting
Occupy Igneouramus!
;-)
This ain't no amateur operation. The project's geological engineers were fully prepared to bore through the types of rocks and sediments found in that area.
Bertha is the biggest, most sophisticated tunnel boring machine on earth. If the operators only needed to change out the cutter heads, this wouldn't have made the news.
Something tells me that we're never going to get a straight answer on what really stopped the operation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.