If that picture is to scale, those bolts are ~5km thick. Put enough of them and it should hold
Comment on xkcd #3078: Anchor Bolts
AceBonobo@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There’s no way that’s going to hold, right?
hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
modeler@lemmy.world 11 months 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.
death_to_carrots@feddit.org 11 months ago
After a certain point, the material around the bolt is more brittle than the bolt itself.
hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Often is, but you can alleviate this with large washers like in the picture, and also by adding more bolts closer to eachothers
anomnom@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Too many bolts too close and you’ve just got a perforation.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
I think double-sided tape would be better. Or maybe we sew the plates together?
death_to_carrots@feddit.org 11 months ago
Would you say tectonic plates are more like wood vor metal? There are different standards for both.
OrganicMustard@lemmy.world 11 months ago
At geological timescales everything is a liquid
delgato@lemmy.world 11 months 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!