Modern Marvels
Season 12 Episode 40 - Dredging
They dig, scoop, suck, and spew an ocean of silt and sediment. Dredgers are the mechanical beasts that fuel the world's economic engine by clearing and deepening ports for mega-container ships. The roots of dredging go back as far as the Egyptians, who used their hands to open channels on the Nile to keep crops watered. The Romans, who used harbor dredging to keep a tight fist on Europe, pioneered the "spoon and bag" dredge to speed up the process. Steam power brought about the first large-scale dredges and helped create the Panama Canal. We'll go aboard two of the largest US dredgers and see how they keep waters moving. And in Holland, we meet the biggest players on the dredging world and witness the launching of the largest dredge ever built. From there, we head to Dubai in the Middle East, where 90 square miles of new islands was dredged from the sea and will now create a pleasure world for the rich and powerful.
Episodes in Season 12
Poison
44 min
Car Tech of the Future
44 min
The Arch
44 min
More Nature's Engineers
44 min
World's Biggest Machines 3
44 min
Blackbird Stealth
44 min
The Butcher
44 min
George Washington Carver Tech
44 min
Firefighting!: Extreme Conditions
44 min
Desert Tech
44 min
Sub Zero
44 min
The Great Bridge: 8 Miles of Steel
44 min
Howard Hughes Tech
44 min
Edwards Air Force Base
44 min
Taxidermy
44 min
SWAT
44 min
Deadliest Weapons
44 min
The Doomsday Clock
44 min
The Basement
44 min
Paint
44 min
Mega Movers
44 min
Punishment
44 min
Bricks
44 min
Glue
44 min
F/A-22 Raptor
44 min
Civil War Tech
44 min
Machines of D-Day
44 min
John Hancock Center
44 min
The Cape Cod Canal
44 min
Secret Japanese Aircraft of World War II
44 min
Future Tech
44 min
Edison Tech
44 min
Secrets of Soviet Space Disasters
44 min
Mountain Roads
44 min
Route 66
44 min
Cowboy Tech
44 min
Sewers
44 min
Challenger Tank
44 min
World's Biggest Machines 4
44 min
Dredging
44 min
Lube Job
44 min
Secret Luftwaffe Aircraft of World War II
44 min
The World's Fastest
44 min
The B-2 Stealth Bomber
44 min
High Risk: Helicopter Lineman
44 min
Wiring America
44 min
Nature Tech: Lightning
44 min
HMS Victory
44 min
Engineering an Empire: Rome
44 min
Coffee
44 min
Sugar
44 min
Cereal: History in a Bowl
44 min
F-117 Nighthawk Stealth
44 min
German Small Arms of World War II
44 min
The Auto Store
44 min
Secret Allied Aircraft of World War II
44 min
Engineering Disasters 17
44 min
Brewing
44 min
The Lumberyard
44 min
Da Vinci Tech
44 min
Custom Cars
44 min
More Hardware
44 min
Weird Weapons: The Allies
44 min
More Snack Food Tech
44 min
Walt Disney World
44 min
Nature Tech: Hurricanes
44 min
Private Collections
44 min
