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recovering bodies of drowned sailors from the sunken Russian from onshore. Once offshore, beneath the sea, there is nothing to submarine, the Kursk. The diver works for the giant multinational stop the TBM from tunnelling along the coastline, miles out to industrial conglomerate, Halliburton Co. According to the article, sea, beneath the sea floor. And no one would be the wiser. the diver worked on unspecified undersea projects with a range of The state-of-the-art progress for a TBM in good rock is several construction activities including "welding, concrete work—what- miles per year.’ With just one machine and one crew, a 100-mile ever jobs can be done undersea".’ tunnel system could certainly be secretly constructed in 10 to 20 Let me relate a personal anecdote. In 1976, while hitchhiking years. If just five machines were employed, 500 miles (or more) through Scotland, I caught a ride with an ex-diver for the British of secret tunnels could be excavated in the same period of time. Navy. He was working at that time in the oil fields in the North _ This is well within the state of the art of tunnel boring technology. Sea, and described his work routine to me as follows. He would Indeed, at a recent meeting between the heads of state of Japan put on a diving suit and travel down to the sea floor where he and South Korea, the then Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori would carry out major construction work, which involved strenu- proposed constructing a 108-mile-long undersea rail tunnel ous work on pipelines and valves and the assembly of structural between Japan and South Korea. The purpose of the tunnel would components. be to facilitate trade and to provide a rail link between Japan and The simple point I am making is that the offshore petroleum the Eurasian land mass. In the words of Prime Minister Mori: industry has had the capability for decades to carry out heavy "The construction is technically possible, but the problem is industrial activities on the sea floor. This capability could easily money."* be extended to constructing airlocks and openings for undersea The money to carry out a secret project of this sort certainly bases. exists in the Pentagon's "black budget". The requisite infrastruc- Where tunnelling is concerned, operating a tunnel boring ture of secrecy to carry out such a project has been in place in the machine (TBM) in solid rock, hundreds of feet below the ocean military-industrial complex for decades now. And there is even a floor, really presents no greater a technical challenge than operat- paper trail that shows US Navy interest in building manned bases ing a TBM in solid rock hundreds of feet below the surface of deep beneath the ocean floor. solid ground. In both cases the machine and its operators are in an enclosed environment. The US Navy Paper Trail Indeed, one source mentioned to me that "'in principle" there is One paper trail begins in 1966, with a letter on 18 April from nothing to stop a TBM from tunnelling out beneath the sea bed Robert W. Van Dolah, of the US Bureau of Mines, to Dr William B. McLean, Technical Director for Research and Development at the US Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California.’ In the letter, Mr Van Dolah * alludes to Dr McLean's interest in "deep underwater gy exploration". Mr Van Dolah specifically refers to tun- nelling at great depth under the ocean bottom. His letter says: In talking with some of our mining experts here, | find a consensus that sinking a shaft to 10,000 feet GULF and driving a drift horizontally from this presents no severe problems (other than money perhaps) if oF the rock is competent and not faulted. One of the most difficult problems in deep mines is a sealing off of aquifers. It would seem that even if the rock e were competent throughout the tunnel and drift, there might be rather difficult problems in break- A ceecessensnenunaan ing through to the bottom of the ocean and main- a taining a seal against the high water pressure. FINLAND Mine Tunnels beneath the Sea All over the world there are mines that extend offshore eneath the sea; in many cases, the mines were first exca- vated many decades ago, even one hundred years ago or more—as with the British coalmines that extend out under the North Sea and the Firth of Clyde. Among the places where submarine coalmines have een worked, in addition to Britain, are Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Japan and Taiwan.’ By way of further example of undersea hard-rock mining, there is the Jussaro Island undersea iron mine off the coast of Finland, Illustration 1. Jussaro iron mine lies undersea off the coast of Finland. beneath the Gulf of Finland. The Jussaro Island mine Notice there are two access shafts: one onshore, and the other offshore on a tunnels extend hundreds of feet beneath the sea to bodies small island. The actual mine workings are undersea. The Jussaro mine is a of iron ore that lie just offshore. The tunnels are accessed good example of a deep mining operation beneath the sea floor. (Source: from shafts that have been sunk from islands in the John L. Mero, The Mineral Resources of the Sea, Elsevier, New York, 1965) vicinity (see illustration 1). from onshore. Once offshore, beneath the sea, there is nothing to stop the TBM from tunnelling along the coastline, miles out to sea, beneath the sea floor. And no one would be the wiser. The state-of-the-art progress for a TBM in good rock is several miles per year.’ With just one machine and one crew, a 100-mile tunnel system could certainly be secretly constructed in 10 to 20 years. If just five machines were employed, 500 miles (or more) of secret tunnels could be excavated in the same period of time. This is well within the state of the art of tunnel boring technology. Indeed, at a recent meeting between the heads of state of Japan and South Korea, the then Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori proposed constructing a 108-mile-long undersea rail tunnel between Japan and South Korea. The purpose of the tunnel would be to facilitate trade and to provide a rail link between Japan and the Eurasian land mass. In the words of Prime Minister Mori: "The construction is technically possible, but the problem is money."* The money to carry out a secret project of this sort certainly exists in the Pentagon's "black budget". The requisite infrastruc- ture of secrecy to carry out such a project has been in place in the military-industrial complex for decades now. And there is even a paper trail that shows US Navy interest in building manned bases deep beneath the ocean floor. ¢ In talking with some of our mining experts here, | find a consensus that sinking a shaft to 10,000 feet and driving a drift horizontally from this presents no severe problems (other than money perhaps) if the rock is competent and not faulted. One of the most difficult problems in deep mines is a sealing off of aquifers. It would seem that even if the rock were competent throughout the tunnel and drift, there might be rather difficult problems in break- ing through to the bottom of the ocean and main- taining a seal against the high water pressure. GULF OF 28 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2001