Once again I made the most of the current snails pace of WOGE to collect my 3rd win in total and my 2nd in as many months! Martins WOGE#355 (http://blog.martinb.za.net/2012/where-on-google-earth-355/) had sat dormant sufficiently for him to provide two clues and it was these that led to prolonged periods of scrolling up and down rivers across all of southern africa!

I have a location that I’ve wanted to use for some time however in the interests of rasiing the pace of the game Im going to go for a locale that I think will be solved relatively easily. I wont invoke the Schott rule and therefore I hope for an even speedier resolution and we can all look forward to more and more new localities ASAP!

Happy Hunting…………….!

Chris

So I sneaked in to win my second WOGE, mainly I believe due to the absence of some of the competitions keener eyes perhaps due to summer commitments , but I’m pleased to be back on the scoresheet after a lengthy absence. Whilst work commitments have distracted my focus in recent months i cant use that as a total excuse given the time it took me to resolve Matthew’s WOGE#352 (http://matthews-woge.blogspot.de/2012/07/woge-352.html) despite some pretty obvious clues!

Despite numerous Google searches for ‘hot springs’ and ‘water parks’ I rambled all across the globe before deciding the landscape looked decidely Amazonian! Following what must rank as one of the most obvious hints in WOGE history a Google search of ‘Hot Springs Brazil’ led me right to the intended target! I am not someone to look a gift horse in the mouth so I’ll grasp my opportunity and move the game along……..

I will invoke the Schott rule purely to try and encourage new winners, plus I have a feeling this will be solved quickly, apologies to those of you who are likely sick of this rule ruining your fun! For a full set of rules see here -  http://woge-felix.blogspot.de/p/rules-of-geological-whereongoogleearth.htmlhttp://woge-felix.blogspot.de/p/rules-of-geological-whereongoogleearth.html

Ive removed the image referencing and therefore the scale bar too unfortunately, FYI the shot is 5.5km across and 3km up/down. Best of luck:

 *EDIT (30th Aug): This devilish locality seems to have got the hole WOGE community stumped, either that or there are some serious summer holidays underway! Hopefully the below might help those who are attempting the challenge……………

*EDIT (9th Sept): Well either Ive made thisone a little too hard or everyone has given up?! In the interests of moving the game on I’ll add two  images, one zoomed right in and one right out, which should hopefully provide the information required to get us out of this hole!

 

 

 

Its possibly the most famous quote in relation to the site investigation industry and there isn’t one Consultant in the world who hasn’t tried to prove the efficacy of these words to a client;

“you pay for a site investigation whether you have one or not“.

As a fresh faced first year undergraduate 10 years ago it was a statement that was driven home to us all in the hope that the engineers of the future would go forth and prosper, enhancing client perception and advancing the name of the geological and geotechnical industries along the way.

Personally I felt that the industry did seem to be coming on-board with the warning issued by the ICE in 1991 as I saw proactive clients in both the public and private sectors come looking for appropriate investigations to move their developments forward.

There seemed to be an acceptance that such site investigations weren’t a necessary evil but could in fact bring much benefit to the project, perhaps such work could even bring a future cost saving, the holy grail!

So in these difficult economic times I wonder just how the wider industry views site investigation works currently. Legislation certainly assists in ensuring that such work is undertaken but what of the quality of such works? Clients remain aware that they need the investigations to form their concept designs, to finalize their detailed design etc etc but is the industry being seen as an easy way to save a few pounds, dollars or riyals?

The key comes at the tender stage. What is the client’s rationale going to be? Will he/she adhere to the tender review matrices that they agreed upon? How will the clients resolve stand up to a flurry of sub-standard technical submissions leaving only higher priced contractors meeting the acceptance criteria? Ultimately when the chips are down will the client simply revert back to price regardless of quality?

My experiences in the Middle East to date suggest that while the initial discussions are in line with accepted processes of tender review, acceptance that data collected at such stages will form the design of much of the overall works and that quality of work and gathered data is of the upmost importance, when push comes to shove price wins 9 times out of 10.

Such an approach inevitably creates a sense of impending dread as new projects go out to tender. Winces and groans when you hear who is preparing to tender. Wonder at just how low company X will bid?  Fear that the client will fail to see through the blatant brinkmanship of tenders filled with promises and assurances. Worry that the lessons learnt the hard way in previous works will be forgotten when the commercial submissions are opened and the currency signs begin to flash.

Don’t get me wrong there are times when I’ve seen some of the best contractors submit prices that are totally non-competitive and I’m not talking about the ludicrous submissions that simply scream “we don’t want your contract but we’re tendering just so you don’t forget us”. However when you see a contractor tender for work that you know he cant fulfill to the standard you and the contract deem appropriate but are over-ruled by the clients take on it all you’re left wondering if the words of the ICE 20 years ago ever made it outside the shores of the UK at all?

I’m not sure that anyone even sees my musings, to be honest I don’t expect anyone to with the randomness of entries further debilitated by my extremely sporadic postings however if there is anyone out there with any thoughts and experiences on this issue I’d love to hear them…………………

Since my last post in 2010 its fair to say the world has seen some pretty significant developments. From the natural disasters seen at locations across the globe to the unrest across the arab world, our thoughts go out to all those affected by such events.

Lets hope the rest of 2011 is a lot less newsworthy!

Large scale construction is common place in the Middle East and living and working here within the industry you cant help but become interested in it. The scale and pace of developments are astonishing, allied to that when things go wrong they have the potential to do so in even more astonoshing fashion.

Both of the incidents I’m highlighting in this post are a few years old now but even so the imagery is remarkable and serves as a reminder to all of us in the industry……

Versace Tower/D1 Tower

The key to this appears to be a failure in a embankment which is retaining the adjacent Dubai Creek from the work site. Ive marked the area to keep an eye on with red lines, watch as the failure progresses, the water level rises until the final mass failure and inrush!!!!

These photos came to me via email and i cant vouch for the exact location but i believe it to be the incident described here:

http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-2124-quay_wall_collapse_hits_d1_tower_site/

SAVING THE BEST TILL LAST…………………

In searching to try and find supporting info for the photos i received above i came across an even more remarkable collapse and some amazing(ly scary!) images at http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=462316, here is the best/worst of the bunch:

As I’ve spent pretty much all of my short lived career involved in one way or another drilling boreholes for a wide variety of purposes I wanted to highlight a machine that I think has revolutionized the outlook of the drilling industry in the UK. To qualify that statement I would like to say that it is worth remembering that the vast majority of UK contractors drilling fleets are either quite aged pieces of equipment or, where there has been investment in new plant, the equipment is ‘new’ merely in its production. By that I mean that the approach to drilling/boring/augering, in essence advancing, boreholes has not changed significantly in generations. An old driller once told me that it had been proven that the ideas behind cable percussive drilling dated back to Egyptian times, he did stress that he hadn’t seen it himself though i wasnt so sure! 

In essence rig manufacturers were sticking to the valued adage ‘if it aint broke, dont fix it’. And quite rightly. All too often ‘new’, ‘exciting’ technology comes at the expense of common sense and practicality. 

Once again, I’ve digressed.

The inspiration behind this post comes from this:

(http://www.slopedrilling.com/page1.aspx)

This is one of the Geotrak series of slope drilling rigs available from Slope Drilling Ltd. I first came across this concept a few years ago when scoping a highways investigation part of which was on a steep sided road embankment. I got in touch with Stuart Tod who at the time was with Geotechnical Engineering (http://www.geoeng.co.uk/Index.html) a UK site investigation contractor. Stuart had personally conceived, designed, trialed and championed the concept of a window sampling rig capable of not only drilling on slopes but creating safe working platforms for its staff.

I was impressed with what Stuart had to say and convinced my boss immediately that this was the best solution to the problem and we awarded the slope work to Geotechnical Engineering. At that time it seems very few people in the industry were aware of this little gem and I spent many a day on site and in meetings eulogizing about the merits of this wonderful bit of kit. The last I had heard before I departed for sunnier climes in 2008 was that the rig had been formally accepted by several major players which had opened up the rail and highways networks where I was sure it would excel.

And it seems it did just that with further advances coming in the form of larger rigs capable of rotary drilling, larger working platforms and larger ambitions not to mention formal recognition by way of a prestigious ‘Ground Engineering’ Awardwith the Judges saying:

‘We liked this enormously because investigating slopes is at the heart of difficult ground engineering.  Getting rigs on slopes can be complicated and expensive.  This machinery has lots of well developed ideas and addresses many health and safety issues”.

(http://www.geplus.co.uk/)

It looks as though Stuart Tod has now gone out on his own to bring the rig to the wider world with Slope Drilling Ltd (http://www.slopedrilling.com/page1.aspx) and I’m pleased to champion for both Stuart’s new venture and the work Geotechnical Engineering have already done and continue to do with the rigs in the UK.

It can’t have been easy trying to bring innovation to an industry who had been sat on their laurels for so long, maybe now we can see further technological advances bring greater efficiency and cost benefits to clients around the world, thus securing the  jobs of contractors, engineers, designers and the like.

A cursory google search will tell you that the record for the worlds biggest hole is not as straight forward as it may seem. Is it man-made, whats its volume, how deep is it, whats the width, was machineary used……..it goes on. Really!

I’m not getting caught up in all that. This blog is about holes of all sizes from Cone Penetration Test holes to the worlds ‘biggest’ excavations. And for me there is no better place to begin than Mirny Diamond Mine, Eastern Siberia. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_mine) reports that it lies second after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, USA but there is one aspect of the stories associated with Mirny Mine that adds more intrigue to this almighty hole.

I have to admit to not knowing the accuracy of such reports but none the less what i love about this place, other than its sheer scale, is the story that airspace around the mine has been closed to helicopters due to the downward air flow ‘sucking’ the aircraft into the mine!

The above picture (http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/worlds-largest-diamond-mine.html) shows the close proximity to the mine of an airstrip which is midly concerning both for the departing/arriving aircraft and for the accuracy of the said rumour! None the less it is a truly extraordinary feat of human engineering to be applauded and the perfect nugget of information with which to begin this blog.

Some more info, including an in-depth ‘discussion’ on the advocacy of a helicopter being ‘sucked’ into a hole available at the following sites:

http://lerevdr.wordpress.com/7-amazing-holes-the-helicopter-experts/

http://www.usmra.com/photos/bigpit/

As a first time WoGE winner, I am delighted to select and host the current one.

If you are new to Where on Google Earth (WoGE), an explanation of the game can be found here- http://geosociety.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/where-on-google-earth-219/

Find the location of the below target on Google Earth, include longitude/latitude and describe the geology you see. I have no idea if this will be an easy or a hard one but in the interest of helping out all other WOGE newbies I’ll envoke the Schott rule meaning previous winners need to wait an hour for each WOGE they have won before answering.

Posted 6th December 2010 11:45AM GMT

EDIT:

Congrats to Felix who found the location and relayed its geological significance – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93T_boundary

As promised in my response to Felix I have managed to locate the picture of me at the locality. I qualify this picture with the statement that we had spent many days in rural northern Tunisia and the head scarves were extremely useful during that time. shame we all looked like such a bunch of numpties!

Girls all on one side of the boundary and boys on the other (i’m the numpty in the white head scarf that didnt get this memo and/or am confused about my sexuality!). Perhaps if i’d listened more at university i might be able to advise which side if the boundary is which!!! But i didnt and so i cant. Sorry!