Posted on 12/26/2013 5:02:00 PM PST by Windflier
A War of the Worlds alien ship.
The hardness isn't the issue. It is thought that the object -- probably a boulder -- won't stay still. It moves a little because of a void or soft earth behind it and so the cutting teeth can't get purchase.
You wouldn’t believe how controversial this project was. I have a friend who was so anti-tunnel that he became a one-issue voter over it. It’s now such a painful subject we don’t discuss it.
That's possible, but if that's the case, then why haven't the project managers put all this speculation to rest? Why all the spooky hush-hush secrecy?
Any project this large has one or more people on the payroll whose sole function is to talk to the press. The only statements we've heard from the project principals, is that they've encountered something "unknown", and that boring has stopped until they can determine what it is.
If the situation is what you suggest, it seems they would have indicated that from the very first. In fact, it probably wouldn't have even been newsworthy.
You must be from these (Puget Sound) parts.
Really? What were the anti-tunnel folks' concerns?
They haven't been able to look at it yet. Water is flooding in both from the Sound and from landside. Not just water but high-pressure water. Adding pumps. No conspiracy.
It’s not the depth, it is the pressure in front of the machine. As Axenolith pointed out, they usually pressurize the tunnel to keep the water to a minimum. So it is like being deep under water.
After looking at the picture (post #82), I do not envy the person who has to find out what it is. There has to be a trap door somewhere in the face. All the nooks and crannies will be PACKED with rubble. Once you dig through that (by hand), you only have to deal with the fact that you are underground, most likely under water, it is dark, cold, and pressurized. And assuming they have “backed it up”, you will have feet of rubble to get through, again by hand, before you even see “the object”. Even though I bet the pay to do this will be extraordinary, I would rather get a root canal.
Glacial erratic!
Wonder why those details are missing from all the press reports? Or, am I just reading at the wrong sources?
They tried to peer through the trapdoor/viewport but the rubble and water didn't let them see anything. Anyone in that area has to be outfitted as an industrial-strength deep-water diver.
I get my info from articles that have been published in the Seattle Times online primarily.
That wouldn't stop Bertha. She's designed to chew right through igneous rock.
Got it. Still seems weird that the tunnel boring operator's media people aren't getting that sort of data out to the national press.
Even if that rock is an 8 on the Mohs scale?
I bet it is one of those giant tonka toy dump trucks we used to ride as a kid. Those things were indestructible.
There is a picture of an elephant stepping on one here, from the tv commercial:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TonkaTough
Here is the actual commercial on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMjxOD1lJq0
Pretty much what holyscroller described:1. Expensive 2. Bad idea in Earthquake country. 3. Beloved of unions and crony capitalists. I’m not sure what they thought the alternative should be.
My friend is a moderate Republican and I told him I was sitting out the last mayoral election(I was still living in Seattle then) because they were both gun grabbers. He agreed, but said he was voting for whichever gun grabber was anti tunnel.
“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.”
That’s cuckoo!! They’re not working submerged in a fluid (i.e., water). Its not unlike working deep in a mine.
Elaborate, please. I'm unfamiliar with the Mohs scale.
Funny-@$$ thread! Good thread for road geeks, too.
Combined PING and DANG!
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