Dissolving Earth: The Arrogant Collapse of the Teton Dam

Building a 300-foot-high dam out of compacted dirt requires absolute geological perfection. When the Bureau of Reclamation decided to build the massive Teton Dam in Idaho, they chose to anchor it into heavily fractured, highly porous volcanic rock, entirely ignoring the desperate warnings of their own geologists. The true fatal flaw, however, was the use of loess soil. This wind-blown silt is st...