Word: seam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...story shovels that can crunch 120 cu. yds. of earth in one bite, exposing the coal veins for an army of other machines to attack. Mechanization has come to underground mines, too. In the big ones, miners no longer loosen the coal with explosives and pry it from the seam with pickaxes; they work continuous mining machines that cost $200,000 apiece and look like a cross between a chain saw and a lobster. The machines nose up to the coal vein and rip out ten tons of coal a minute; then their clawlike arms sweep the coal onto conveyor...
With her back to the large mirror she held the one small one so that she could see her back. A shiny, pale pink seam ran down the lower part of her spine; near the top of her left buttock, the crescent scar where they'd taken the bone for the spinal fusion matched the large seam in color. She shivered. In the six years since the operation she had never looked at her naked back...
Radcliffe's squash seam lost two matches yesterday falling to Williams and Trinity by scores of 5-2 and 6-1 respectively, for its second and third defeats of the season...
...construction site, with piles of boards, bolts, rails, ties and electrical power equipment. The wires on this equipment are regularly checked lest a miner be electrocuted. Facing the wall of coal is a continuous coal mining machine called "the beast." The machine's whirling blades chew into the seam with a roaring noise like an avalanche, spewing chunks of coal back into waiting coal cars, which are equipped with robot-like "gathering arms" that channel the flow. The load is then trundled back along the tracks and automatically unloaded onto a conveyor-belt system that lifts the coal...
After the collapse, the University ran a series of strength tests to determine if the seam had given way under lower strain than guaranteed by its manufacturer. Under test conditions, the seams reportedly gave way at only about one fifth of the pressure they were supposed to withstand. Apparently the nylon cord used for the seams had badly decomposed from five years of ultra-violet rays of the sunlight...