November – 2012 – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Monthly Archives: November 2012

November 28, 2012 – 6:00 am

making the geologic now

[Jinanqiao Dam under construction on the Jinsha River. New “mega-dams” such as Jinanqiao in high seismic risk zones — territories prone to earthquakes, in other words — are at the center of a highly consequential scientific debate about whether the dams are making disasters like catastrophic 2008 Wenchuan earthquake more likely and frequent. Fascinatingly, the argument is […]

By rholmes | Posted in dredge, events, landscape, publications | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on making the geologic now | Permalink
November 20, 2012 – 6:00 am

longshore transport and littoral drift

[Dauphin Island, Alabama, at the south opening of Mobile Bay.] Continuing the theme of Sandy-inspired rumination on the risks and rewards of littoral urbanization, a pair of articles by Justin Gillis and Felicity Barringer at the New York Times utilize the example of Alabama’s Dauphin Island — a hurricane-battered barrier island near the port of […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, dredge, landscape | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on longshore transport and littoral drift | Permalink
November 15, 2012 – 6:00 pm

ivanpah

[At Wired, a gallery of photographs of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, by Jamey Stillings. At completion, the Ivanpah facility is expected to be the largest operational solar power facility in the world.]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, energy, infrastructure, landscape | Tagged , , | Comments Off on ivanpah | Permalink
November 13, 2012 – 7:00 pm

response survey

[A lost cargo container located by the NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson (below, in operation post-Sandy) on the bottom of the New York harbor.] After Sandy, ports along the east coast path of the hurricane were closed, including the Port of Virginia in Hampton Roads and, of course, the Port of New York and New Jersey, in large […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, dredge, landscape | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on response survey | Permalink
November 2, 2012 – 6:00 am

dredgefest nyc: video archive

[Audience discussion during DredgeFest; photo by Nicola Twilley.] One of the primary reasons that mammoth has been relatively quiet this year is the effort that Stephen and I, as two of the four current members of the Dredge Research Collaborative, have put into organizing DredgeFest NYC.  We did this with no small amount of assistance from […]

By rholmes | Posted in dredge, events, infrastructure, landscape | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on dredgefest nyc: video archive | Permalink