Comment on xkcd #3078: Anchor Bolts

AceBonobo@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If that picture is to scale, those bolts are ~5km thick. Put enough of them and it should hold

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  • death_to_carrots@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    After a certain point, the material around the bolt is more brittle than the bolt itself.

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    • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Often is, but you can alleviate this with large washers like in the picture, and also by adding more bolts closer to eachothers

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      • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I think double-sided tape would be better. Or maybe we sew the plates together?

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      • death_to_carrots@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Would you say tectonic plates are more like wood vor metal? There are different standards for both.

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      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Too many bolts too close and you’ve just got a perforation.

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  • modeler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    the crust … starts crumbling somewhere else creating new mountains or islands

    Exactly. The oceanic crust will (in geologic time) crack in front of the bolts and be dragged down parallel to the bit that was bolted, stacking the oceanic crust with the newer bit under the older one.

    The cracking and stacking happens naturally and this creates stacks of many oceanic crust sections moving to the left of the picture.

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• OrganicMustard@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  At geological timescales everything is a liquid

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  • delgato@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I took an atmospheric science class in college and the professor described the field as “fast geology”, I like your description though that geology is the study of slow fluids!

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