Talk:2752: Salt Dome

Made a guess. By me. (talk) 22:39, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Odd that Beret Guy’s not the one doing it. We’ve seen White Hat act a normal extra character before, but having Beret Guy in a comic not doing anything strange feels wrong. Intara (talk) 04:09, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:37, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I have just mentioned this in the explanation and compared Cueball's power with Beret Guys strange powers. --Kynde (talk) 09:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

My reading of it is that Beret Guy does strange things because he doesn't truly understand how things work (the way that scientific consensus understands, c.f. Vacuum Energy). This geologist is doing a strange thing because he is just so good at the regular science he knows. Success through hypercompetancy, not hypernaïvity, in modulating pressure-waves (like a phased-array transmitter?) from the four chair-leg points sent through theoretically knowable layers of floor and bedrock.

It's a stretch, but given the changes needed to put Beret Guy into protagonist position (it'd be just "don't ask this guy...", not a geologist) then I think it's a perfectly valid compositional choice on behalf of Randall. (Who can do as he likes, without my trying to be apologist for him, but I'll explain my conclusions anyway.) 172.71.178.64 10:28, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The text mentions the UK Salt reserve, used to prevent black ice on roads. I assume that US states that get sufficient snowfall also maintain reserves of salt and grit to keep their roads open. Or does it simply get too cold for ice to be of any use? -- Arachrah (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Yes, states and municipalities in the US definitely maintain reserves of salt for use in treating roads during winter weather. Such reserves are commonly stored in dome-shaped structures (often seen near highway interchanges), which I assume is part of the allusion in the title text. I don't believe this statement in the current explanation is completely accurate: "Ordinary salt is also available in abundance throughout the U.S. so there is no need for any kind of salt reserves, strategic or otherwise." This may be true at a Federal level, but having grown up in the northeastern U.S., I recall hearing of some of the smaller municipalities running low on/out of salt during especially harsh winters. CarLuva (talk) 14:25, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed and fixed. Can you find a photograph of such dome structures? I've lived in areas dependent on road salting most of my life without ever having any idea what the stockpiles look like. 172.69.22.71 14:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Much better, thanks! A quick Google image search for "road salt dome" yields plenty of photos of them. 172.71.82.16 16:01, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Given that selection of images, I question the link specifically to "monolithic dome" in the explanation (and the hatnote on The Other Wiki's "salt dome" page) - many of those photos are clearly of structures assembled from multiple parts; some appear to be gridshells, others possibly fabricated as a set of tall of segments. - IMSoP (talk) 17:20, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Woah, my cousin told me those were for alfalfa and silage. Huh! 172.69.134.36 16:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

The same structures can be used for both. If you see them by a stockyard, think silage. By roads, think salt. 162.158.166.172 17:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Covered salt piles are relatively new. Prior to 2000, or there abouts, salt was stored uncovered piled on bare earth. Some would be lost due to rain and runoff. But salt was cheaper than salt barns. However excess salt causes environmental problems and storage losses were unnecessary. There was some gnashing of teeth when regulations mandated covered salt barns. 172.71.222.129 04:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm, I also see a somewhat indecent connotation between passing the salt and passing a kidney stone, in particular that the salt in the picture is being extruded through an orifice in the ground... -- 172.68.138.179 09:55, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Beret guy lended his powers to a geologist.172.68.51.204

It was Toph tier XD haha, get it? Toph! 162.158.94.21 05:29, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

How long would it take for the salt to be pushed up to the surface? 42.book.addict (talk) 18:17, 3 February 2024 (UTC)