Category Archives: water
Soft Systems: Bracket 2
Located in the Chesapeake Bay, Poplar Island (above) is a flagship example of the USACE’s “beneficial uses of dredge”. Working with state and federal organizations, the USACE has been placing dredged sediments from The Port of Baltimore’s shipping channels onto the island since the mid-90’s. This practice meets the Port’s immediate need for a dredge […]
Making the Geologic Now
[Aerial view of Amwaj Island, Bahrain, where 2.79 million square meters have been reclaimed from the sea. The foundation of these islands and its surrounding breakwaters are made of geotubes, sausage-like casings of geotextile fabric that have been pumped full of 12 million cubic meters of dredged ocean sediments recycled from navigation channels and marinas. […]
How to Unwater
Saturated by images of inundated New York – via the instagram storm and elsewhere – we wonder how the city’s subways and various other low-lying crevices will be drained of Sandy’s remnant flood waters and how long that process might take. As it turns out, there is an emerging design specialty just for that purpose being […]
Drifts in Magnetic Fields
[World Magnetic Model maps notating the magnetic field's intensity (top) and inclination lines, or angle of the earth's magnetic field above or below horizontal (bottom)] [Film of a suspension of dissociated cells from trout "olfactory epithelium" (cells extracted from some unfortunate trout's nose) placed under the laboratory influence of a magnetic field rotating at a […]
Buoy Wave Park
[Section and model rendering of the pv150 PowerBuoy, by Ocean Power Technologies] The U.S.’s first federally approved commercial wave energy infrastructure is readying for deployment off the coast of Oregon. In an ocean array 2 miles from shore, each energy producing buoy will measure 150 feet tall by 40 feet wide, and weigh 200 tons: As interesting […]
Invitation to DredgeFest NYC
[Left: The British Headquarters Map, circa 1782, considered one of the most detailed surveys of Mannahatta's early topography and ecology. Right: Mannahatta map illustrating the differences in the island's elevation between 1609 and today. Grays and blacks indicate increases in elevation, mainly waterways that have been filled in, while browns indicate decreases in elevation, such […]
Drying Out
The map above comes from the USDA and NOAA’s Drought Monitor, where they publish a new version of the map every Thursday. The site provides animated compilations of its compiled findings, showing the lead up to the current situation in which more than 1,000 counties in 26 U.S. states have been declared disaster areas by […]
Building Land to Know How It Erodes Away
[Top image: Sediment-thickness map, showing thickness of the sand deposit at Hewes Point, north of the Chandeleur Island chain. Sand used to construct the E-4 berm was excavated from the side of the deposit, about 3 kilometers north of the islands. Bottom: Photograph taken on April 13, 2011, of the completed E-4 berm, detached from […]
Columbia Migrations: Dredge Oregon
[a hand-crafted steel cutterhead of the Dredge Oregon. The specular silver sheen on the backside (click on image for detail) is a nickel plating added to extend the life of the cutter as it rips and churns through the shifting sediments of the Columbia River.] Back in February of this year I had the opportunity […]
Dredge Acts of 2012
[In process earthworks (new locks) as part of the Panama Canal Expansion] “There is neither a single issue nor solution to how to prepare for future maritime transportation infrastructure needs… There is a plethora of studies, opinions and prognostications about what the effects of the new [Panama Canal] locks will be on trade flows, ship […]
