Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Oroville aux spill to fail within the next 60 min!!

Per my posted yesterday:

OK,...let's hear it.
WTF, Over ?

More on Foliated Basalt
An Excerpt :



Link: https://localwiki.org/yuba-sutter/Smartville_ophiolite

Smartville ophiolite

The Smartville ophiolite is an ophiolite (a large expanse of rocks from the ocean floor exposed on the surace of dry land) that passes through much of the northern California foothills, reaching from northwestern Lake Oroville southeast to Cameron Park. Its western edge passes slightly east of Palermo and Loomis, and its eastern edge passes slightly east of Nevada City. In Yuba County, it passes through Browns Valley, Brownsville, Challenge, Dobbins, Frenchtown, Greenville, Loma Rica, Oregon House, Rackerby, the Spenceville State Wildlife Area, and of course the town of Smartsville, for which it is named.

The theory of plate tectonics holds that the North American continental plate has been moving gradually west ever since North America broke away from the supercontinent Pangaea during the time of the dinosaurs. While moving west, the North American continental plate collided with several large prehistoric islands, which then became attached to the continent. Most of the land in California comes from these large prehistoric islands. In fact, the Mojave desert region is the only part of California that was originally part of the North American continental plate.

In a few areas, part of the ocean floor that had previously separated those prehistoric islands from the continent was pushed up and became part of the continental surface. These areas of former ocean floor are called ophiolites. The Smartville ophiolite is one of several major ophiolites in California.

Ophiolites are found in all the major mountain ranges of the world. The need to explain how fossils of prehistoric sea creatures ended up on high mountaintops played a major role in the development of the theory of plate tectonics. Additionally, much of what scientists know about the ocean floor comes from studying ophiolites, because ophiolites are so much more accessible than the land that's still under the ocean.

Like other ophiolites, the Smartville ophiolite contains large amounts of serpentine and other ultramafic rocks, along with gabbro, basalt, and other mafic rocks. Basalt in the Smartville ophiolite sometimes takes the form of pillow lava, a billowing shape caused when lava erupts under the ocean and is rapidly cooled by the ocean water.

For information about the unusual effects that serpentine and other ultramafic rocks have on plant growth, see the Serpentine page. Gabbro and other mafic rocks can have similar but milder effects on plant growth.

I haven't had my coffee yet and I'm feeling a little dense - but I read that whole link (a wiki? come on...) and saw no mention of foliated anything.

I like how they discuss the problem, while repeating the dam is in no danger, while if the achilles heel fails, the dam will be left standing holding back a wall of air.

Wrong...if the spillways had experienced total failure, most of the water behind the dam would still be there...

That's an interesting statement, since basalt can't be foliated - it's igneous. But never mind that - the bedrock at Teton wasn't tuff anyway, it was rhyolite, as is much of the bedrock in Idaho.

The fact is that the bedrock at Teton had fissures (typical of rhyolite) that weren't grouted sufficiently (if that is even possible), and the dam failed from low on one side. So the bedrock under Teton dam was not better than, or even similar to, what is under Oroville. And the dynamics of that dam failure were not in any way comparable to what is happening at Oroville (at this time).

Wrong...if the spillways had experienced total failure, most of the water behind the dam would still be there...

The reason all this matters, re comparisons to Teton, is that the two are completely different events. Teton's leak started low on the dam - the earth fill part - at its junction with the bedrock canyon wall. The erosion was entirely in the fill material. Teton's spillway was situated in a very similar manner to Oroville's, on a projecting ridge next to the dam proper. The flow of the breach, when it blew out, was actually scouring the edge of that bedrock as the dam was collapsing, but the bedrock didn't crumble away. Even though it wasn't the best of structural materials (as subsequently admitted). The force of that catastrophic flow didn't seem to have much effect on it.

At Oroville, the erosion is starting outside of the fill area and has some concrete and bedrock to get through before the dam. Not impossible at all, but even at that, it will be a top-down erosion - not blowing out the middle, as in Teton.

I'm afraid the massive annihilation of Californians dreams of some on this thread just isn't gonna happen.

Even if 'most' was left behind the dam, the predicted top 30' would be a huge disaster.

And once they lose basic integrity the whole thing would likely wash out.