Scientists crack recipe for ancient Roman concrete Unruly passenger ignited big brawl during flight, FBI says
Two-thousand years ago, Roman builders constructed vast sea walls and harbor piers. The concrete they used outlasted the empire — and still holds lessons for modern engineers, scientists say.
A bunch of half-sunken structures off the Italian coast might sound less impressive than the Colosseum. But underwater, the marvel is in the material. The harbor concrete, a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime, has withstood the sea for two millennia and counting. What’smore, it is stronger than when it was first mixed.
The Roman stuff is “an extraordinarily rich material in terms of scientific possibility,” said Philip Brune, a research scientist at DuPont Pioneer who has studied the engineering properties of Roman monuments. “It’s the most durable building material in human history, and I say that as an engineer not prone to hyperbole.”
By contrast, modern concrete exposed to saltwater corrodes within decades.
The mystery has been why the ancient material endured. “Archaeologists will say they have the recipe,” saidMarie Jackson, an expert in ancient Roman concrete at the University of Utah. But it’s not the complete picture: It’s one thing to assemble the ingredients, another to know howto bake the cake.
To that end, Jackson and her colleagues peered into the microscopic structures of concrete samples, extracted from the sea walls and piers as part of a project called the Roman Maritime Concrete Study. “This rocklike concrete is behaving, in many ways, like volcanic deposits in submarine environments,” Jackson said.
Where modern concrete is designed to ignore the environment, Roman concrete embraces it. As the scientists report in a study published Monday in the journal American Mineralogist, Roman concrete is filled with tiny growing crystals. The crystals, like tiny armor plates, may keep the concrete from fracturing.
The scientists subjected the concrete samples to a battery of advanced imaging techniques and spectroscopic tests. The tests revealed a rare chemical reaction, with aluminous tobermorite crystals growing out of another mineral called phillipsite. Brune, who was not involved with the study, called the work a “significant accomplishment.”
In this instance, the key ingredient proved to be seawater. As seawater percolated within the Roman concrete, Jackson said, it reacted with the phillipsite naturally found in the volcanic rock and created the tobermorite crystals.
“Aluminous tobermorite is very difficult to produce,” she said, and requires very high temperatures to synthesize small amounts. Cribbing from the ancient Romans might lead to better production of tobermorite, which is prized for its industrial applications, she noted.
Jackson is attempting to recreate this durable concrete using San Francisco seawater and more abundant volcanic rocks. If her effort is successful, the concrete could yet have a role to play in human history — “if one was indeed interested in making sea walls” and “forced to protect shoreline environments,” Jackson said.
SEATTLE — A flight attendant broke a wine bottle over the head of a man who lunged for an exit door and fought with other passengers during a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to Beijing, but it didn’t faze him, an FBI agent wrote in charging papers filed Friday.
JosephDanielHudek, 23, of Tampa, Fla., appeared in U.S. District Courtwearing a beige jail uniform and sporting a scrape or bruise below his right eye.
He was arrested Thursday night after causing the disturbance that forced the plane to return to SeattleTacoma International Airport, authorities said.
Hudek did not speak during the hearing. His attorney, Robert Flennaugh, declined to comment.
Hudek was charged with interfering with a flight crew, which carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He is expected to remain in custody at least until a detention hearing on Thursday.
Oneflight attendantanda passenger were taken to a hospital after suffering severe facial injuries, authorities said. Perry Cooper, a spokesman for the Port of Seattle, characterized the injuries as non-life-threatening.
A probable cause statement written by FBI special agent Caryn Highley said Hudek was sitting in the first row of the Boeing 767’s first-class section. He asked a flight attendant for a beer before takeoff, and was served one, but he exhibited no sign of being intoxicated and ordered no other alcoholic drinks, the attendant told authorities.
About an hour into the flight, while the plane was over the Pacific Ocean northwest of Vancouver Island, Hudek went into the forward restroom. He came out quickly, asked the attendant a question, and went back in, the agent wrote.
When he came out again two minutes later, he suddenly lunged for the exit door, grabbed the handle and tried to open it, Highley wrote. Two attendants grabbed him, but he pushed them away, and the attendants signaled for help from several passengers and notified the cockpit by phone, the complaint said.
Hudek punched one flight attendant twice in the face and struck at least one passenger in the head with a red dessert wine bottle, it said.
As the struggle continued, a flight attendant grabbed two wine bottles andhitHudekover thehead with each — breaking at least one of them, Highley wrote.
According to one flight attendant, “Hudek did not seemimpactedbythebreaking of a full liter red wine bottle over his head, and instead shouted, ‘Do you know who I am?’ or something to that extent,” the complaint said.
One passenger got him in a headlock, but he broke out of it, until finally several passengers held him long enough to place zip-tie restraints on him, Highley wrote. Even then he remained combative, she said, and it took multiple passengers to keep him restrained until the plane landed and Port of Seattle police arrested him.
The flight left for Beijing later Thursday night.