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The Troll Platform
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The Troll Platform rises 1200 feet from the ocean floor, and it has tapped into Europe's richest natural gas field. But it's how it got to this spot, 40 miles from the Norwegian coast that earns it a place in our countdown.
It's right smack in the middle of the North Sea. And this meant that, ah, whatever we wanted to put in place, there had to be constructed at shore in Norway and then be floated out and installed offshore.
First, engineers had to build the hollow base that would anchor the Troll Platform to the seabed. Using over 700 thousand tons of cement, workers created a structure one hundred feet high, spanning three football fields in area.
It was then towed to a nearby fjord where the massive construction continued. On the fjord, four towering shafts were built on the base. Six feet thick and a thousand feet tall, the hollow towers were built to support a deck, which weighed over 22,000 tons.
In order to place the deck onto the towers, builders filled the hollow shafts with water. The structure sank below the surface and the deck was then floated over it.
With only 3 feet of space between the deck and the platform, it was a risky maneuver. Engineers then pumped air into the concrete shafts and the giant Troll, now complete, lifted out of the sea. Next, this colossal structure rising 550 feet above the water had to be towed out to a gas field forty miles away, the equivalent of towing the Empire State Building 200 nautical miles.
Eight 130,000 horsepower tugs pulled the concrete giant and two tugs in the back served as rudders as Troll made its way through the narrow fjords. With only thirty feet of clearance in some areas, Troll had to avoid the rocks below or the entire structure would collapse. After traveling at one mile an hour for six days, the Troll Platform reached its final destination. It was sunk into the seabed above the Troll Gas Field and over one thousand feet of this industrial wonder disappeared from view forever. But for anyone standing inside one of the structure's hollow legs deep below the North Sea, Troll offers a spectacular sight. It's just like being in a magnificent cathedral because you can see up and up and up.
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特里尔平台
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特里尔平台比海底高一千二百英尺，矗立在欧洲储量最丰富的天然气田。它位于距挪威海岸四十英里的海上，把它从陆地移到这里的过程使它榜上有名。
油田位于北海的中部，无论我们想在那里安装什么，都要先在挪威海岸建造，然后从水上拖过去，在海面上完成安装工作。
为了把平台固定在海底，工程师们先建起了中空的基座，一共使用了七十多万吨水泥，建成的平台高一百英尺，有三个足球场那么大。随后人们把它拖进附近的海湾，在那里进行大规模的施工。人们在基座上建起了四根塔柱，每根直径达六英尺，高一千英尺，这些中空的塔柱将用来支撑两万二千吨重的上层甲板。为把甲板放置到塔柱上，人们向中空的柱子里灌满了水，让整座建筑沉到水下，把甲板漂浮过去，扣在上面。甲板和平台之间只有三英尺，这是一次危险的操作。工程师随后把空气注入塔柱，让完工的特里尔平台浮出水面。接下来就是把高出水面五百五十英尺的巨型建筑拖到四十英里外的天然气油田，这相当于拖着帝国大厦在海上航行二百海里。八条十三万马力的拖船在前面拖，两条在后面控制方向，钻井平台艰难地穿过了狭窄的峡湾。某些海区的能见度只有三十英尺，而平台必须设法躲过水下的暗礁，否则整座建筑就会毁于一旦。整整航行了六天之后，时速一英里的平台才抵达目的地，在特里尔天然气田上方沉入海底。这座一千英尺高的建筑奇迹永远从人们的视线中消失了，但如果站在北海深处这些巨大的中空柱子里，特里尔平台无疑会让人眼界大开。这是一个雄伟壮丽的建筑，你可以抬头向上看，却看不到尽头。
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