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I'm liking the idea that it was an ambitious municipal project gone sideways. After all, it took two years to make the Grover's Corners, and as documented elsewhere, most of that was spent in actually growing the dome -- this is going to take even longer, and if it's something the town was duped into wanting, we don't have to explain why no one twigged onto it before the takeoff. We just have the mad come in as a contractor, fabricating monthly progress reports for the city council, and no one will question what he's doing.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Monorail! Monorail!
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
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Quote:Dartz wrote:
Well, look at it this way.... instead of an aquifer, you've got a nice, deep reservoir. Which'll also change the local microclimate to be cooler.
O_O;;
I'm afraid it isn't as minor as that. Look at the page I linked. San Antonio is at the 'bottom' of the aquifer. Literally. This would not only become a spring, but it would flood the San Antonio River all the way out to the coast until the aquifer is dry. Given how big of a hole it is, that won't take long in the grand scheme of things. It will definitely be noticed once the water pressure on the other artesian wells goes to nothing and the springs all dry up.
For perspective, here's the wikipedia article on the Comal Springs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comal_Springs_(Texas)
Monorail? MONORAIL!
Actually, this could be what he was doing... though not a monorail, but a subway instead.
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Huh.... Lake Antonio though. Just think about it. Maybe trapped by a cofferdam caused by the city's construction. A brand new tourist attraction and hydropower opportunity if you control the releases down the San Antonio river.
It's kinda hard to believe that nobody would've noticed what was happening for a long time - but given the US track record with public/private projects probably.... This is a country where using public money to pay a corporation to build and operate something, then allowing the company to charge the public to use it on top of that, is considered normal. It's like double taxation.
It just seems a bit far out that one person could pull it off. A Mad capable of doing it would be far better known, I think.
Still, it's one way to end up on the EPA's most wanted list.
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Quote:Dartz wrote:
Huh.... Lake Antonio though. Just think about it. Maybe trapped by a cofferdam caused by the city's construction. A brand new tourist attraction and hydropower opportunity if you control the releases down the San Antonio river.[/url]
[url=http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/epa-fugitives].... That would have to be a dam nearly ... st Aquifer composed of sponge-like, porous limestone riddled with large conduits. Some of the water that comes up out of the wells out west of San Antonio could very well have been from rain that fell as little as a week ago. All those creeks and streams you see on that map contribute to the aquifer as they pass over the exposed Karst formations. And as we all know, a lot of small trickles can make for one heck of a flood.
(The batshit* crazy thing about our Karst Aquifer as opposed to others: San Antonio is the only city in the world that does not need to treat its water. This is because the Edwards Aquifer has the unusual propensity to emulate a wastewater treatment plant. It has everything - dilution, settlement areas, filtration zones, and even a biological process. The problem is while we have evidence of its existence, no one's been able to get concrete proof besides crawdads and blind catfish showing up in major wells.)*Pun intended - it is hypothesized that bat guano from caves in the recharge zone is one possible contributor to the unusually high nitrate levels in wells in the western part of the Edwards.
So, now you know the scale of what we'd be dealing with. the outflow is going to be ridiculous in the extreme and there is going to be no easy containment except maybe reverse engineering the Mad's 'Wavium Seed. And that would be chancy as all hell as you'd run the risk of contaminating the Aquifer with Handwavium if it hasn't been already. (And if it has already.... Holy Shit. I have no words...)
Seriously, the river it would create (hopefully temporary) would be a horrifying sight. With Texas soil being so easily eroded, it would quickly carve its way down into the soft limestone bedrock and become a Class 5 Whitewater Rapids... maybe even a Class 5+. (Dunno if it'd make Class 6 - not enough sudden drops from San Antonio out to Corpus Christi.) The damage would be nothing less than catastrophic, perhaps even biblical in proportions.
You see, we've always had issues with flooding here in Texas. For example, the River Walk was originally a series of storm drains intended to keep the downtown area from flooding. It didn't work out as well as hoped, and it was eventually converted into riverside shops and cantinas (and even the occasional pub - as authentic as we can make it and still exist in the USA). We had much better success with the Olmos Dam Project - a large dam to collect the flood waters of the Olmos Creek where int runs through San Antonio and slowly release it back into the creek. Fairly recently, the Army Corps of Engineers completed pair of very large flood control tunnels that run under the downtown area. Just in time, too, because on the next rainy season hit, it hit hard enough that the new tunnels were truly hard pressed to keep up. This webpage for the San Antonio River Authority has a short list of past projects. Very interesting reading if you're into civil engineering.
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Looking at that first image, it seems to me that there won't be a breach if the Mad only goes 100 feet down. Yes, a few skyscrapers would lose their sub-basements, but the aquifer would be intact.
--
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Yeah in othe words looking at the geographic layouts you would have to dam above SA, replace the aquifer level with something of similar density bury that then undam the aquifer again. Lets just leave SA where it is and not have to argue with Texas Rangers wanting to "return a prisoner of Azkaban to Texas"
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Well.... dip.
From a meta standpoint, a cock-up and disaster of that magnitude probably shouldn't be blamed on one person.
I don't think there's any natural historical precedent for blasting a quarter-mile with hole through a pressuriesed aquifer. (The size of the cut ring depending on how deep down it is.) It'd be interesting to see
Most of Ireland has a similar geology - mothe West especially with the burren especially being obvious where the topsoil has just been blasted off. The result could be something of a massive inland Turlough, that floods and empties with the changing level and pressure of water in the aquifer. One other effect that can happen is, if it does rapidly erode a riverbed, is the river can drain back down into the limestone or bore its own swallowhole right down and vanish. A small scale version of that happened here too, when someone built a canal in a limestone area, flooded the canal, and was promptly embarrassed when it all drained down into the limestone bedrock.
All that water's got to go somewhere, and will keep going there.
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Quote:robkelk wrote:
Looking
at that first image, it seems to me that there won't be a breach if the
Mad only goes 100 feet down. Yes, a few skyscrapers would lose their
sub-basements, but the aquifer would be intact.
Dunno... some places here in SA are notorious for being 'shallow'. (And if you were ever to visit you'd see the evidence - some places here, roads DO NOT stay level for long and develop dips spanning the entire road that will make your head hit the ceiling if you take them at speed.) My mother attests that if her parents had wanted to, they'd only need to have drilled a shaft 75 feet down in their back yard to get the to aquifer. :p Quote:Rajvik wrote:
Yeah
in othe words looking at the geographic layouts you would have to dam
above SA, replace the aquifer level with something of similar density
bury that then undam the aquifer again. Lets just leave SA where it is
and not have to argue with Texas Rangers wanting to "return a prisoner
of Azkaban to Texas"
I wouldn't mind the Rangers per say. Hell, were it up to Ben he'd go "All yours, boys."
As for the damage to the aquifer.... I'm trying to come up with some plausible excuse for the Mad to leave a perfectly sealed crater in his wake... maybe he wanted to ensure a clean appearance? Could only be done if the bowl was double-layered - one being the 'skin of the ship' and the other being the layer left behind, which would have the fortunate bonus of keeping the aquifer plugged.
This would be interesting in other ways because the River Walk would drain into it and fill it. And then you have your lake. Wonder how long until they'd set up a marina? Although, I don't think it would make a difference in local ambient temperatures - it's warm enough around here that after a long hot day, pavement stays warm to the touch all hours of the night. (Things that annoy me when delivering pizza at night: stray dogs that sleep out on the rural roads because the pavement is warm.) If anything, the lake would keep the downtown area WARMER in the winter time!
An excuse for going that deep in the first place? Water treatment. As mentioned before, the Edwards Aquifer has the bizarre ability, unlike other Karst Aquifers, to filter and treat its own water - even to the point where we don't even have to treat the stuff we get here in SA. (Though our water is hard as hell.) That would memetically play into the handwavium down at that depth, and so you would have the still functioning plumbing, much to everyone's pleasantly surprised relief.
Possible quirk: Hard Water - leaving water running for an extended period of time will cause it to form a stalagmite formation from your faucet until it is fully occluded. It's almost like the city itself is telling you not to waste water. Quote:Dartz wrote:
Well.... dip.
From a meta standpoint, a cock-up and disaster of that magnitude probably shouldn't be blamed on one person.
I don't think there's any natural historical precedent for blasting a
quarter-mile with hole through a pressuriesed aquifer. (The size of the
cut ring depending on how deep down it is.) It'd be interesting to see
Yeah, the entire city council plus the mayor would probably wind up getting impeached/recalled. Quote:Dartz wrote:
Most of Ireland has a similar geology - mothe West especially with the
burren especially being obvious where the topsoil has just been blasted
off. The result could be something of a massive inland Turlough, that
floods and empties with the changing level and pressure of water in the
aquifer. One other effect that can happen is, if it does rapidly erode a
riverbed, is the river can drain back down into the limestone or bore
its own swallowhole right down and vanish. A small scale version of that
happened here too, when someone built a canal in a limestone area,
flooded the canal, and was promptly embarrassed when it all drained down
into the limestone bedrock.
All that water's got to go somewhere, and will keep going there.
Yeah, difference with ours is that it has a solid slab of younger limestone on top, sealing the whole thing in except at the exposed Karst formations (which form what we refer to as the 'recharge zone') and at the springs. Other than that, the sudden floods that quickly disperse are a thing here as well.
But yeah... that solid limestone will keep the water on the surface until it flows out into the Gulf of Mexico. More likely than not, it will probably wind up contributing into the San Antonio River and flooding that.
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