we were doing a road job, total reconstruction of an old stretch of highway here in wyo, we were ripping the asphault and burying it, there was close to three feet of it in some places, overlay on top of overlay trying to fix different problem spots probably dating back to the 50s or 60s. we got to one stretch peeled off the asphault started salvaging what base we could when i noticed these pure white pockets of something, got off my scraper went over to one grabbed a handful it was like a pure white paste you could wad it like a snowball and throw it at a passing scraper it would stick. there were about 6 in a row going across the road all evenly spaced, going down the road every 5 feet, there were hundreds of these little perfectly round pockets of something, the pockets themselves were about 10 inches round and went down about 1 1/2 feet. after we got part way through the base we realized it was some idea hoping to hold up the road, we were in some seriously miserable mud, that 2 mile stretch was the worst, it was the only stretch that had the funky white stuff, with nothing but time to think about things and look for girls, i figured that stuff was prob drilled into the base as a powder to soak up moisture? even the state super who was an old frog had never seen anything like it or heard of it, has any one else seen such a thing?:beatsme:beatsme
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any one heard of this?
- Thread starter 637slayer
- Start date
385Diggin' Doug
Well-Known Member
Soil Nails
Without seeing it first hand,it sounds as if there was a process called soil nailing used.We use this method quite often to bridge unstable or unsuitable areas.It is usually done in a post pattern horizontal or vertical depending on the stabilization issues at hand.We have always had great success with it.Just my .02.
Without seeing it first hand,it sounds as if there was a process called soil nailing used.We use this method quite often to bridge unstable or unsuitable areas.It is usually done in a post pattern horizontal or vertical depending on the stabilization issues at hand.We have always had great success with it.Just my .02.
surfer-joe
Senior Member
Yeah, but it's been a long time. It was an idea that involved bentonite used to wick water out of swampy right of ways. Some folks also thought that it would help avoid frost heaving.
But, it's not completely out of favor. Back around 1996 Kennecott Copper had a big problem with their tailing retention dike of the east side. (the side towards SLC and the airport) The dike was saturated with water and it was feared that it might give way, thus flooding the airport and possibly parts of SLC with very soupy tailings. They brought in a huge crane mounted auger and drilled hundreds of holes in the dike, which were then backfilled with a synthetic filter material and something resembling bentonite but probably something else. Not sure on that point.
So far as I know, the dike is still holding.
But, it's not completely out of favor. Back around 1996 Kennecott Copper had a big problem with their tailing retention dike of the east side. (the side towards SLC and the airport) The dike was saturated with water and it was feared that it might give way, thus flooding the airport and possibly parts of SLC with very soupy tailings. They brought in a huge crane mounted auger and drilled hundreds of holes in the dike, which were then backfilled with a synthetic filter material and something resembling bentonite but probably something else. Not sure on that point.
So far as I know, the dike is still holding.
that makes sense, after some investigation and a few budlites we figured the mystery substance could have bentonite in it, we could see some bentonite mines from the job. makes me wonder what they will think about the permiable fabric we put under the roads today, in 50 years when they come back to improve the roads.