Large scale lithotripsy

[HKLITO]

I am interested to know if there is a technique similar to lithotripsy (a technique that pulverizes kidney stones by passing shock waves through a water-filled tub in which the patient sits) but for pulverizing (converting to sand) submerged calcareous rock at sea (old dead coral reef rocks).
Hans Klein

 

[butelja]

Think high explosives. Lots and lots of high explosives.

 

[Hatch]

Almost anything can be done for the right price. It is one thing to shatter a few kidney stones weighing a few ounces and a much bigger thing to shatter rock in any large quantity.

I don't know if you are trying to get the rock out of the way (clearing a boat channel?) or planning to recover the sand? or something else?

If you are clearing the channel, then as suggested by butelja, "think high explosives". If you are recovering the sand, then a boring machine connected to a crushing circuit (on a boat) would be standard mining engineering. After all the technique to recover 3 to 5 ounces of gold in a ton of very hard rock exists, it only takes money!

C. Hugh (

http://www.Hatch.ca)

 

[HKLITO]

Thanks very much for your interest and your help in my question.
Really, I wanted to know if there is a technique similar to lithotripsy but in large scale.
Of course, I know that to shatter a few kidney stones weighing a few ounces is a much bigger thing than to shatter rock in a large quantity and because of this, my question was about “Large scale lithotripsy technique” and not simply about “Lithotripsy”.
As I can see from your answers, there is not such technique, and this is the answer to my question.
Of course, with lots of money and dynamite, I can do many things, but I am looking for a relatively low cost technique with low environmental impact, although I do not discard dynamite to produce shock waves to pulverize to sand calcareous coral reef rock, but in an efficient and low cost way.
No, I am not trying to get rock out the way, nor planning to recover sand, nor trying to recover gold from hard rock (old coral reef rock is not hard and does not have gold in it). I want to pulverize the rock and leave the resulting sand there, which is all what I want.
If there is not such technique, it is interesting to study the possibility to design it. Do you know the energy per unit of mass required for shattering few ounces of kidney stones and how it compares to other rock shattering techniques?

Thanks again
Hans Klein