How would mountains and hills have to be made-up in order to impede tunneling them WHILE still allowing them to be mined out?
In my con-world I went lengths to introduce a plausible lighter-than-air element and did rather large amounts of thinking about landmasses in order to promote the development of airship technology over that of land-based technology.
This question is about the geological characteristics of most of the mountain ranges and rock in general in this world. Their mix/composition of rock, sand, dirt, etc.
How would mountains and hills have to be made-up in order to impede tunneling them WHILE still allowing them to be mined out?
By tunneling I mean digging tunnels to be used by trains and land-based-traffic to pass under a mountain rather than having to go up and down again.
By mining out I mean that they contain an abundance of useful minerals and ores that will be mined and make up one of the pillars of industry and society.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/41841. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Well, think about the direction in which each of these operations needs to go.
Tunnels go horizontally across the mountain. Mines go more diagonally downwards, or even straight down in some cases.
So, if you make the middle of your mountain out of much denser, more solid rock that is really difficult for tunnelling, but add a layer of softer rock underneath that, then you can mine downwards to get the precious metals out, but you can't tunnel through.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads