From ENR:

In the mountains of Peru a tunnel-boring machine named “Pacha Mama” is grinding through the heart of the Andes under rock as deep as 6,890 ft. It is carving away at a 20.2-kilometer-long tunnel through the South American Continental Divide to deliver water to arid coastal farmland.

This is a really interesting project, known as the Los Olmos project, and a nice little article. Normally for a civil tunnel project you drill geotechnical holes beforehand to know what kind of material you're dealing with. In this case, because of the depth, they don't have that luxury, so all decisions will be made on the fly. The depth of the tunnel creates some very challenging rock mechanics and logistics problems as well! (Illustration by Odebrecht)

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Mona Kotak said:

CAn you send me more inifirmation on this project and also the companies and people involved in this project. Regards, Mona

Monday June 09, 2008 06:20AM

rockman said:

Hi Mona, I just came across the project through ENR (link at top of the article). I'm afraid I don't have any other info. If you find anything else, by all means drop us a note or leave another comment here. -- Rockman

Monday June 09, 2008 09:08AM

llolla said:

I work on one of these projects where "they" are boring underground (using a Tunnel Boring machine - TBM) to feed water from one reservoir to another. I have no direct hand in the geotechnical applications of the project, as I mostly deal with the chemistry of the rock/muck that comes out behind the TBM. Our TBM has been slowed by incomplete knowledge of the rock (from drill core) and is becoming a costly (oh god you can't imagine how costly a TBM is) project. I can't even begin to imagine the bill at the end of this project. And maybe it doesn't matter, water means life. Gawd-i would love/go crazy/be so scared if I were to be underground in that tunnel

Thursday June 12, 2008 09:06AM

rockman said:

Hey llolla, Sounds like interesting work. What is your background? Geology? Geochemistry? Or something else? I can imagine it's hard to get good geotechnical and geological data on the rock that the TBM will be drilling through, even if it isn't 7,000 ft underground like this project. I imagine you drill for a couple hundred ft and at the bottom you get 30-ft of core that will be in the path of the TBM, then you move a few hundred/thousand ft away and do it again. Not a very complete picture of the material the TBM has to drill through. Thanks for the comment. -- Rockman

Thursday June 12, 2008 11:03AM

Alvaro said:

Hi Mona, I'm part of the Robbins Co. crew in the Olmos Project, There is just two companies, Odebrecht and The Robbins Co. Regards

Saturday June 28, 2008 11:36PM

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