G-spotter Posted June 2, 2006 Posted June 2, 2006 The estimated "250-300 tons" of debris sounds ridiculously low. That's like 100 cubic meters. Quote
billcoe Posted June 2, 2006 Posted June 2, 2006 Who wants to sue the park service ? Bet they knew this would happen and didn't do anything about it. Quote
sobo Posted June 2, 2006 Posted June 2, 2006 ...Motorists were advised to use alternate routes into the park... Gee, ya think? Agree with Dru; from the dimensions of the slide, that's like 4 million cubic yards of shit. 250-300 tons sounds trite. Quote
EWolfe Posted June 4, 2006 Posted June 4, 2006 It sounds like stabilization is a real issue, removing debris might cause additional rockfall on the removal crew. Poor Mariposans !! I have a reclusive artist friend that has a minimalist shack on 5 acres near Mariposa, I stay there sometimes on trips. He is always complaining about tourist traffic, so I know at least 1 person who is happy about this.... Quote
ken4ord Posted June 5, 2006 Posted June 5, 2006 ...Motorists were advised to use alternate routes into the park... Gee, ya think? Agree with Dru; from the dimensions of the slide, that's like 4 million cubic yards of shit. 250-300 tons sounds trite. No one was injured in the slide about 12 miles west of the park on Highway 140, but rocks continued to fall Thursday, preventing crews from removing an estimated 250-300 tons of debris, fire officials said. It was not clear when the road would reopen. I think they are talking about the material that has to be removed inorder for the road to be opened. Not the amount of material that slid. I am sure they are not going to remove all of the 600ft X 600ft X 300ft slide. Quote
sobo Posted June 7, 2006 Posted June 7, 2006 I think they are talking about the material that has to be removed inorder for the road to be opened. Not the amount of material that slid. I am sure they are not going to remove all of the 600ft X 600ft X 300ft slide. Hi Ken, While I am also reasonably sure that they aren't planning to try to remove the entire slide, 250-300 tons still seems awfully small in the overall scheme of things. BEGIN If we accept, according to my engineering texts, that some good solid granite weighs on the order of 2 tons per cubic yard, then we're talking about roughly 125 to 150 cubic yards of material to remove, as stated in the article (250 tons/2 tons per CY=125 CY, 300 tons/2 tons per CY=150 CY). Mind you, now, this assumes no air voids in all of this shit, a conservative approach. Now assume that the width of the removal is, say, 30 feet wide (this assumes two 12-foot-wide travel lanes plus a small shoulder area on each side). Taking 150 CY and converting to cubic feet, then dividing by the width of the removal for the roadway leaves an area (that must, by definition, be formed by the length of the slide along the buried portion of the roadway times its height above the roadway surface that needs to be removed) of 135 square feet. If the length of roadway covered by the slide is, say, 30 feet (just a coincidence that I used the same value for the width to be cleared; it really doesn't matter for the purpose of this illustration, as you'll soon see), then that means that the depth of the slide across the road is somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5 feet thick. Now, given the dimensions of the slide that are stated in the article and the attendant hub-bub that the media has made of the event, I find it rather difficult to believe that the dimensions of the roadway clearing could be this small (30 feet x 30 feet x 4.5 feet thick = 150CY = 300 tons) for a slide of a magnitude of 4 million cubic yards. Hence my earlier comment "250-300 tons sounds trite." QED END Of course, I could be wrong. Quote
Mark_Husbands Posted June 7, 2006 Posted June 7, 2006 The problem is not your engineering logic, it's your word choice. A dictionary can be helpful in these situations. Webster defines "trite" as "hackneyed or boring from much use : not fresh or original". I believe the word you are looking for is "trivial", defined as: 1 : COMMONPLACE, ORDINARY or 2 a : of little worth or importance Indeed, a few hundred tons would be trivial, but I have heard some engineers refer to many thousands of truckloads of material that would need to be moved before attempting to rebuild the completely destroyed road. And, it may be years before the slide area is inactive. Basically, they're talking bridges to the far side of the river. Mark Quote
sobo Posted June 7, 2006 Posted June 7, 2006 The problem is not your engineering logic, it's your word choice. A dictionary can be helpful in these situations... Agreed, Mark. It would be "poor form" for me to go back and edit that out of my posts at this time, so I will let the error stand as posted, but I accept your correction. ...but I have heard some engineers refer to many thousands of truckloads of material that would need to be moved before attempting to rebuild the completely destroyed road... Which is the very point I was trying to make. "Many thousands of truckloads", as you have heard, would be far in excess of "...250-300 tons...", as reported in the article. Quote
octavius Posted June 7, 2006 Posted June 7, 2006 What is that on the rock just above the waterline? Looks like some weird animal... maybe a bigfoot was out trundling? Quote
Mark_Husbands Posted June 8, 2006 Posted June 8, 2006 Yeah, I was just joshin' with the dictionary stuff. You are totally right, the article (wherever it is) must be off by many orders of magnitude. I'm one of the sad saps who lives here and has to commute 2+ hrs. to El Portal from Mariposa. Unfortunately they closed the road--both the highway and the old railroad grade across the river--before I got a chance to see the slide area. I've heard it is mesmerizing. Quote
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