As I may have professed before, drilling through the Alps is like a geological wet dream. Was I offered to aid with it, I would jump at it like a shot. The geological mapping information that can come out of those sections may solve long-standing issues on how the Alps formed. (Asbestos is likely to indicate metamorphosed plutonic bodies or massive shear zones.)
To more interesting stuff... The story on the Betuwelijn is as long as it is frustrating, and the Antwerp-Amsterdam line is much similar. I got a very nice overview article (in Dutch) on it yesterday. I think it's a diary in itself... Apparently October 2008 is the most positive scenario and 2009 is much more likely. Hopefully once it will be operating the Dutch may finally "get" the use of HSL...
Auditor slams high speed train project 20-06-2007 The transport ministry has been heavily criticised in an audit office report into its management of the high-speed rail link (HSL) to Brussels. The first trains should have been using the railway this spring, but transport minister Camiel Eurlings told MPs a month ago it would be September before he could say when the HSL would finally open. The audit office blamed the lack of control over the project, the complicated tendering process and the fact that safety problems had been underestimated. It said there were fears that the trains themselves would be delivered too late. It also predicted fewer passengers would use the HSL than the operating company - a joint venture between Dutch Rail (NS) and airline KLM - predicts. Last weekend, the Netherlands' other major rail project - the Betuwe freight-only railway from Rotterdam to the German border - opened well behind schedule and heavily over budget.
20-06-2007
The transport ministry has been heavily criticised in an audit office report into its management of the high-speed rail link (HSL) to Brussels.
The first trains should have been using the railway this spring, but transport minister Camiel Eurlings told MPs a month ago it would be September before he could say when the HSL would finally open.
The audit office blamed the lack of control over the project, the complicated tendering process and the fact that safety problems had been underestimated.
It said there were fears that the trains themselves would be delivered too late. It also predicted fewer passengers would use the HSL than the operating company - a joint venture between Dutch Rail (NS) and airline KLM - predicts.
Last weekend, the Netherlands' other major rail project - the Betuwe freight-only railway from Rotterdam to the German border - opened well behind schedule and heavily over budget.
I don't know who did the audit...
The layer containing it was Aktinolith, the TBM in the West bore (which started from the Southwest exit at Steg) hit on it at the beginning of April 2002 (works ceased April 5-13), five months before finishing thus c. 7-7.5 km into the mountain, and here (pdf!) you find the geologic profile -- the asbestos layer must be in that pink zone under the "Lötschental". *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The mineral in question is in your picture: actinolite (the greenish mineral at the base) - an amphibole which indeed has asbestos qualities. They probably did good to protest and shut operations down...
Shale is BTW probably not the right word, especially not in juxtaposition with gneiss. Shale is the description for a sedimentary rock, gneiss for metamorphosed rock. Highly unlikely to find the two side by side in the very core of the Alps!
AFAIK, shale is the exact word for Schiefer, but the way I read it, it is meant to be metamorphosed, too. Since then, I found another article in German (pdf!) that confirms the composition of the surrounding stone as a mixture of metamorphosed gneiss and shale:
Beim Lötschherg-Basistunnel wurde das natürliche Mineral Aktinolith angetroffen, und zwar in alpinen Klüften kalkamphibolführender Gesteine (Amphibolite, Hornblendefels, kristaline Schiefer und schiefrige bis massige amphilolführenden Gneise).
If with Schiefer a metamorphosed rock is meant, it can't be translated with the English shale. Period.
In your next blockquote they talk about "kristaline Schiefer" - I could interpret that as metamorphosed shale. There is no German word for slate? And what a Hornblendefels exactly is, I can't say either. Hornblende I know, hornfels ditto.
Argh.
(And now for the ultimate PN points: Metamorphosed gneiss is a pleonasm. Gneiss suffices.)
hmm: metamorphis
interesting as wellall the things I didn't know about Schiefer (in english)
1) Give a lengthy and unnecessary diatribe concerning the differences and meta-wars being fought over these terms (and apparently in different languages as well).
or
2) Congratulate you all with your more than brilliant sleuthing in geological terms and have a beer now.
PeWi, I didn't know about the schist soils... I'll dig into that later.
For now, I'll opt for option 2. G'night!!
I find in German, Hornblende is the mineral (equivalent to Amphibole), and Hornblendefels is rock consisting of that mineral only.
I also find that slate shale are both translate to Schiefer. The German Wiki even mentions the language difference:
Im Englischen wird zwischen dem unstrukturierten Sedimentgestein (shale) und dem metamorphen Produkt (slate) unterschieden; letzteres ist der Schiefer im engeren Sinne.
About methamorposed and gneiss, the 'methamorphosed' applies both to Gneis and Schiefer in that sentence, so it's not redundant. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I would be grateful for a translation... or, at least, could you tell me if there are other big delaying factors for high-speed operation (or operation at all) beyond the damned ETCS/ERTMS Level 2? That letter soup designates a partially wireless train control, signalling and safety system that just can't be brought into an operational state, despite separate attempts by multiple companies on multiple new projects over the last six years. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
