This paper describes part of the construction of a second theater in the underground museum complex, below the Gateway Arch in St Louis. Given the needs for relatively quiet, non-intrusive rock removal, and yet precise cutting within the museum complex a method of using low pressure (35 MPa) abrasive laden waterjets was developed for cutting the vertical walls of the theater down to a depth of ...

Hopanes and steranes found in Archean rocks have been presented as key evidence supporting the early rise of oxygenic photosynthesis and eukaryotes, but the syngeneity of these hydrocarbon biomarkers is controversial. To resolve this debate, we performed a multilaboratory study of new cores from the Pilbara Craton, Australia, that were drilled and sampled using unprecedented hydrocarbon-clean p...

In this expository paper we show how one can, in a uniform way, calculate the weight distributions of some well-known binary cyclic codes. The codes are related to certain families of curves, and the weight distributions are related to the distribution of the number of rational points on the curves.

Radio pulsar observations can be used to test aspects of general relativity from equivalence principle violations to binary orbital effects in the strong-field regime. This article summarizes the status of such tests at the start of the meeting, and describes two new tests made possible by recent observations of well-known binary pulsar systems.

Rock surfaces are unique terrestrial habitats in which rapid changes in the intensity of radiation, temperature, water supply and nutrient availability challenge the survival of microbes. A specialised, but diverse group of free-living, melanised fungi are amongst the persistent settlers of bare rocks. Multigene phylogenetic analyses were used to study relationships of ascomycetes from a variet...

The purpose of this study was to develop a model for the estimation of rock mass classification of Sarvak limestone in the Bakhtiari dam site, south-west (SW) Iran. Q system had been used as the starting point for the rock mass classification. This method was modified for sedimentary rock mass which is known as Qsrm. Because Qsrm considers a wide range of rock mass propert...

Once segmentation of 3D surface data of a rock pile has been performed, the next task is to determine the visibility of the surface rocks. A region boundary-following algorithm that accommodates irregularly spaced 3D coordinate data is presented for determining this visibility. We examine 3D surface segmentations of laboratory rock piles and determine which regions in the segmentation correspon...

an important concern in rock mechanics is non-homogeneity as joints or fault. this noticeable feature of failures in rock is appearance of slip surfaces or shear bands, the characteristics of that are associated with deformation being concentrated in a narrow zones and the surrounding material remaining intact. adopting the joints as fractures, fractures are well known for their effects on the ...