Re: [Texascavers] here's a fun use of the underground

[Miles Abernathy]

After the atomic bomb went off, there was left a large hollow chamber. What
happened to all the material that had occupied that space before?

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 1:18 PM Steve Keselik  wrote:

> The miners and engineers at the salt dome I worked at on Weeks Island in
> Louisiana would beg to differ on the no fluid flow and permeability line of
> thought. Morton salt has or had (1978) a large salt mine there and leaks
> would increase  in size and flow at an alarming rate and had to be plugged
> ASAP. I would suspect that maybe before a huge man made cavity 1200' down
> was made there that the problem wasn't an issue and the weight and
> plasticity of the salt keep it in one gigantic piece. This was on the coast
> of very wet Louisiana and not the drier New Mexican desert.so that probably
> made the difference. It was a very interesting project, my brother was the
> surveyor that had to lay out the 30' diameter main shaft and the helical
> shat that they could drive equipment up and down into the mine. He started
> the helical shaft at the top and bottom at the same time and when they met
> the walls came out only a few inches apart ! This was before GPS, he no
> doubt  had several years of disturbed sleep checking and rechecking his
> math. The shaft was 1200' deep.
>
>
> 
>  Virus-free.
> www.avast.com
> 
> <#m_1475836728146400418_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
>
> On Sat, May 30, 2020 at 5:44 PM Dwight Deal  wrote:
>
>> Hi Nancy:
>>
>>
>>
>> Forgive me if this is not quite cave and karst related, but -.
>>
>>
>>
>> A smaller but similar "event" occurred about 25 miles southeast of
>> Carlsbad in 1961.  This was the Gnome Project and the first test as part
>> of  Project Plowshare, a poorly-conceived attempt by Sandia National Labs
>> at demonstrating the "peaceful use" of atomic bombs.  The idea was to blow
>> a big hole in the middle of the Salado Salt (about 2,000 feet thick there)
>> and use it to store petroleum as part of our strategic reserve.
>>
>>
>>
>> In some ways it worked quite nicely, except for a couple of details.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>1. The plug failed and the blast vented to the surface. Official news
>>releases stated "Some radiation was released and detected off-site, but it
>>quickly decayed". True enough, but the cloud of radioactive particles was
>>blown northwest and right over the town of Roswell.  I attribute that 
>> event
>>to the next generation of natives behaving erratically and embracing the
>>belief that aliens from outer space crashed near Roswell.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>1. A blast chamber was formed (with a glassy, fused salt floor but
>>with breakdown on top of it) and the surrounding salt remained impervious.
>>The chamber remained a good container for fluids. The detonation created a
>>cavity about 170 ft wide and almost 90 ft high. They actually drilled a
>>shaft (a little over 1,000 feet deep) into it after the blast and lowered
>>men down. I have talked with one of the guys that was down in there. Six
>>months after the detonation, the temperature inside the cavity was still
>>around 140 °F. Unfortunately the radioactivity in the blast chamber was so
>>high and long lived that any petroleum that would have been stored in it
>>would become too radioactive for later use.
>>
>>
>>
>> Duh
>>
>>
>>
>> There was also the idea that perhaps the cavity would be so hot that you
>> could pump water into it and then produce "geothermal" energy.  Not a
>> chance!
>>
>>
>>
>> I got involved in the 1980s-90s because the Gnome blast was very close to
>> the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) where I was the geotechnical
>> manager. The WIPP is where a peculiar kind of radioactive waste is now
>> being stored. Opposition to the storage facility was concerned that water
>> might carry contaminated materials away underground from the WIPP.
>>
>>
>>
>> There is no fluid flow through the salt at those depths because under
>> that much confining pressure (the weight of the overlying rocks - roughly
>> 14 atmospheres) the salt flows plastically and there is no permeability
>> (connected pore spaces) for fluids to flow through.  You must have
>> connected, open pores for fluids to move through rocks.  The Gnome site was
>> a location where you could prove that the containment of radioactive waste
>> at the WIPP was safe.  If no contaminated fluids flow through the
>> undisturbed salt away from Gnome, they could not flow away from the next
>> door WIPP site.
>>
>>
>>
>> But don't befuddle me with science and facts!
>>
>>
>>
>> DirtDoc
>>
>>
>>
>> Attached is an image taken inside the blast chamber before the entry
>> shaft was permanently sealed.  I think that is a person on top of the
>> rubble pile for 

Re: [Texascavers] here's a fun use of the underground

[Steve Keselik]

The miners and engineers at the salt dome I worked at on Weeks Island in
Louisiana would beg to differ on the no fluid flow and permeability line of
thought. Morton salt has or had (1978) a large salt mine there and leaks
would increase  in size and flow at an alarming rate and had to be plugged
ASAP. I would suspect that maybe before a huge man made cavity 1200' down
was made there that the problem wasn't an issue and the weight and
plasticity of the salt keep it in one gigantic piece. This was on the coast
of very wet Louisiana and not the drier New Mexican desert.so that probably
made the difference. It was a very interesting project, my brother was the
surveyor that had to lay out the 30' diameter main shaft and the helical
shat that they could drive equipment up and down into the mine. He started
the helical shaft at the top and bottom at the same time and when they met
the walls came out only a few inches apart ! This was before GPS, he no
doubt  had several years of disturbed sleep checking and rechecking his
math. The shaft was 1200' deep.


Virus-free.
www.avast.com

<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

On Sat, May 30, 2020 at 5:44 PM Dwight Deal  wrote:

> Hi Nancy:
>
>
>
> Forgive me if this is not quite cave and karst related, but -.
>
>
>
> A smaller but similar "event" occurred about 25 miles southeast of
> Carlsbad in 1961.  This was the Gnome Project and the first test as part
> of  Project Plowshare, a poorly-conceived attempt by Sandia National Labs
> at demonstrating the "peaceful use" of atomic bombs.  The idea was to blow
> a big hole in the middle of the Salado Salt (about 2,000 feet thick there)
> and use it to store petroleum as part of our strategic reserve.
>
>
>
> In some ways it worked quite nicely, except for a couple of details.
>
>
>
>
>1. The plug failed and the blast vented to the surface. Official news
>releases stated "Some radiation was released and detected off-site, but it
>quickly decayed". True enough, but the cloud of radioactive particles was
>blown northwest and right over the town of Roswell.  I attribute that event
>to the next generation of natives behaving erratically and embracing the
>belief that aliens from outer space crashed near Roswell.
>
>
>
>
>1. A blast chamber was formed (with a glassy, fused salt floor but
>with breakdown on top of it) and the surrounding salt remained impervious.
>The chamber remained a good container for fluids. The detonation created a
>cavity about 170 ft wide and almost 90 ft high. They actually drilled a
>shaft (a little over 1,000 feet deep) into it after the blast and lowered
>men down. I have talked with one of the guys that was down in there. Six
>months after the detonation, the temperature inside the cavity was still
>around 140 °F. Unfortunately the radioactivity in the blast chamber was so
>high and long lived that any petroleum that would have been stored in it
>would become too radioactive for later use.
>
>
>
> Duh
>
>
>
> There was also the idea that perhaps the cavity would be so hot that you
> could pump water into it and then produce "geothermal" energy.  Not a
> chance!
>
>
>
> I got involved in the 1980s-90s because the Gnome blast was very close to
> the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) where I was the geotechnical
> manager. The WIPP is where a peculiar kind of radioactive waste is now
> being stored. Opposition to the storage facility was concerned that water
> might carry contaminated materials away underground from the WIPP.
>
>
>
> There is no fluid flow through the salt at those depths because under that
> much confining pressure (the weight of the overlying rocks - roughly 14
> atmospheres) the salt flows plastically and there is no permeability
> (connected pore spaces) for fluids to flow through.  You must have
> connected, open pores for fluids to move through rocks.  The Gnome site was
> a location where you could prove that the containment of radioactive waste
> at the WIPP was safe.  If no contaminated fluids flow through the
> undisturbed salt away from Gnome, they could not flow away from the next
> door WIPP site.
>
>
>
> But don't befuddle me with science and facts!
>
>
>
> DirtDoc
>
>
>
> Attached is an image taken inside the blast chamber before the entry shaft
> was permanently sealed.  I think that is a person on top of the rubble pile
> for scale.
>
>
>
>
>
> 
>
> On May 30, 2020 at 2:06 PM Nancy Weaver  wrote:
>
> oops said the geologists.  gotta love the scientific ’try it and see what
> happens’ attitude
>
>