14 DAY TRIAL // The recent digs performed this summer at the World Trade Center in New York in order to lay the foundations for another skyscraper revealed some remains sculpted into the rocks in the area by ancient glaciers some twenty millennia ago, among which there was a 40 ft-deep (12 m) pothole.
The uncovering of the solid rock under the ground zero site situated in the lower part of Manhattan is crucial for supporting the 4th tower of Silverstein Properties' new World Trade Center. Anthony Pontecorvo, a structural engineer from Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers who works on the project stated: "You want to make sure you're not perching something on a ledge."
But the engineers' need to get rid of the earth and rocks in the area overlays scientists' need to uncover more features in the region and find out more about the past glaciation of that zone by studying formations such as the newly-found pothole. Cheryl J. Moss, senior geologist at Mueser Rutledge, said in an interview to The New York Times: "There are areas in local parks that have small vertical potholes exposed, but I'm not aware of anything in the city with a whole, self-contained depression on this scale."
Still, like Robert B. Reina, a supervising structural engineer at Mueser Rutledge, said, however interesting it may prove for scientists, engineering needs are more pressing, thus the site won't get to be preserved for long. "It's nice to look at, but it's all got to go," he stated. All the features discovered will soon be gone – blasted, filled or covered, pothole included.
The site's geology will perhaps still be present in all its splendor in the lecture related to that subject, which Moss and Pontecorvo intend to deliver today close to the ground zero site, at the Tribute World Trade Center Visitor Center.