Quicksand Fans

Elon Musk just opened his new plant in Austin, Texas. During his speech at the opening celebration he lists what they had to overcome in completing a building that is three times the size of the Pentagon.

https://youtu.be/fiwUE_2JhvY?t=2757

East of I-35 the land is very sandy/limestoney/clay. Del Valle where he actually has the plant is a lower area. Not far from COTA. Too bad anywhere that has potential in the 50 mile radius of Austin is likely swarming with people since it is so crowded anymore.

Here is the actual site, before and after. That IS a huge building.

They covered a lot of potential-looking sinking sites (playgrounds?) , but I see similar sites nearby. Yes, lot of people around though.

BogDog wrote:Here is the actual site, before and after. That IS a huge building.

Excellent images there. It's three times the size of the Pentagon. Elon said anything measured in "units of Pentagon" was very big. It does serve as an example of why we have to keep moving farther and farther away to find natural areas.

Me thinks Elon Musk has too much free time on his hands.

BogDog wrote:Here is the actual site, before and after. That IS a huge building.

They covered a lot of potential-looking sinking sites (playgrounds?) , but I see similar sites nearby. Yes, lot of people around though.

GIGATESLA1.png

GIGATESLA2.png

Truth be told, it rarely has much water in that area, the Colorado River is usually very low due to all the damming of it upstream for Austin drinking water and then the rest is diverted to the rice farmers. I was in Austin for 13 years, and there were really no areas that were even worth looking into except along the Blanco River out near Reimers Ranch, which was a pretty busy park. The Catskills and Adirondacks were exponentially better for finding good areas to sink in.

Looking back over the years, the site HAS changed over time. The "pits" didn't appear until the freeway went in between 2006 and 2008.

Black Clay Lord wrote:Me thinks Elon Musk has too much free time on his hands.

Elon Musk has too much of a LOT of things lmao