Venice - A City Built on Pilings
Driving pilings with an early manual post driver. Note how
closely spaced the posts are.
My recent trip to Italy filled me with awe in many ways -- not the least of which was the remarkable engineering and building feats undertaken hundreds and thousands of years ago. Venetians built their city in the middle of a lagoon that covered over 200 square miles and consisted mostly of mud flats, tidal shallows and salt marshes. How did they accomplish this? By driving fifteen to twenty-foot poles though the sandy bottom and into the compacted clay below. And just how well have these held up? Quite well actually. Because the pilings are encased in sand and mud, they are cut off from oxygen and, generally speaking, do not rot. Over time, the massive weight on the top has, in some cases forced them more deeply into the bottom. However, the greater cause of “sinking Venice” is the globally rising sea levels.
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