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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnder Seattle, a Big Object Blocks Bertha(biggest tunnel-boring machine). What Is It?
SEATTLE A secret subterranean heart, tinged with mystery and myth, beats beneath the streets in many of the worlds great cities. Tourists seek out the catacombs of Rome, the sewers of Paris and the subway tunnels of New York. Some people believe a den of interstellar aliens lurks beneath Denver International Airport.
The first rings of the highway tunnel
Bertha in May, before it was lowered underground to start digging.
Now Seattle, at least for now, has joined that exclusive club.
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, a high-tech, largely automated wonder called Bertha. At five stories high with a crew of 20, the cigar-shaped behemoth was grinding away underground on a two-mile-long, $3.1 billion highway tunnel under the citys waterfront on Dec. 6 when it encountered something in its path that managers still simply refer to as the object.
The objects composition and provenance remain unknown almost two weeks after first contact because in a state-of-the-art tunneling machine, as it turns out, you cant exactly poke your head out the window and look.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/us/under-seattle-a-big-object-blocks-bertha-what-is-it.html
I like the den of aliens idea.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)I guess they'll put in a vertical shaft to see wassup.
pnwmom
(108,990 posts)Which is why no bones have ever been discovered.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)Roasted!
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Where he will ultimately find an object that was Five Million Years to Earth
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)Original version
countryjake
(8,554 posts)I'm not even sure if it's still accessible or not, but it was pretty neat down there when I first moved West.
And spooky.
Here's a silly video tour that explains its existence, just for the halibut:
meegbear
(25,438 posts)Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)the chances that the Channel Tunnel is straight as dye from start to finish is nil.
A borer was parked up at the side of the road near Folkestone in Kent at the UK end of the tunnel for ages - may even still be there. Amazing looking piece of kit.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Figure, if you operated the world's largest boring machine, then you'd probably make up stuff to make your boring job seem more interesting.