Gallery: Epic Photos of the New Panama Canal Will Make You Feel Teeny
Tom Fowlks01fowlks-CANAL-01.jpg
The main goal of the Panama Canal expansion project was to build a third set of locks capable of carrying New Panamax-sized vessels. But the project entailed much more than that. Workers also built a four-mile Pacific access channel. They widened and deepened the entrances on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as the Gatun Lake navigational channel and Culebra Cut. And they raised the maximum operating level of Gatun Lake by 18 inches.
Tom Fowlkes02panama-10.jpg
A dump truck carries earth through the entrance of the Pacific Access Channel. More than 300 dump trucks, excavators, cranes and other machinery were required for the expansion.
Tom Fowlkes03panama-14.jpg
Cranes tower above the future site of the Cocoli locks, just southwest of the existing Miraflores locks on the Pacific side. Each lock complex was designed with three chambers measuring 1,400 feet long by 180 feet wide by 60 feet deep. They are 60 percent bigger than those at the original locks. Nine water-saving basins adjacent to each new lock complex fill and empty the chambers through culverts connecting them.
Tom Fowlkes04IMG-1175.jpg
The Titan Crane, originally built in WWII-era Germany, is one of the largest cranes in the world. It performs maintenance work on one one of the original miter gates at the Panama Canal. The rolling gates at the new locks will be easier to service.
Tom Fowlks05fowlks-CANAL-04.jpg
Workers on one of the culverts of the new Agua Clara locks on the Atlantic side. The construction of the locks required 220,000 tons of steel.
Tom Fowlks06Screen-Shot-2016-04-27-at-4.58.10-PM.png
An aerial view of the expansion site. Some 150 million cubic meters—6.4 million truckloads in all—of earth and rock was moved.
Tom Fowlks07fowlks-CANAL-05.jpg
A welder replacing teeth for the Quibián I dredger. The cutter suction dredger slices through rock and sucks it up. The material then gets pumped ashore.
Tom Fowlkes08IMG-8142.jpg
A vessel prepares to enter through the Gatun locks. Lake Gatun faintly appears in the background.
Tom Fowlks09IMG-1011.jpg
An excavator moves earth at the site of the future Cocoli locks on the Pacific side of the canal.
Tom Fowlks10fowlks-CANAL-07-1.jpg
An aerial view of the expansion project with Lake Gatún in the foreground. The lake’s navigational channels were deepened and widened and its maximum operating level raised 18 inches. Altogether, Belgian contractor Dredging International dredged 4 million cubic meters of material from the lake.
Tom Fowlkes11IMG-2036.jpg
Workers in the massive underground culverts. Water travels from holding basins through the culverts to fill the locks.
Tom Fowlkes12IMG-2533.jpg
Gates await installation at the Agua Clara locks. Each of the locks have four sets of two rolling gates, for a total of 16 gates. Each measures 155 feet long, 33 feet wide, and ranges in height between 73 feet and 108 feet. They weigh an average of 3,200 tons—some as little a 2,100 tons, others as much as 4,200 tons. The gates roll into massive concrete recesses perpendicular to the lock chamber floor.
Tom Fowlkes13IMG-5120-v3.jpg
Gates wait to be installed at the Agua Clara locks on the Caribbean side.
Tom Fowlks14fowlks-CANAL-08.jpg
Workers line up to celebrate the opening of the pipes that will fill the lock complex with water.
Tom Fowlkes15IMG-2142.jpg
Workers survey construction at the Agua Claras locks, just east of the Gatun Locks on the Caribbean side. The construction of both lock complexes required the pouring of 4.4 million cubic meters of concrete. By contrast, the smaller, original canal locks only required 3.4 million. Each lock complex had its own industrial park where structural marine concrete—which better withstands chlorines in seawater—was mixed.
Tom Fowlks16fowlks-CANAL-03.jpg
An entrance buried in gravel on the Atlantic side.
Tom Fowlks17IMG-1094.jpg
Expansion work near the Pacific nears completion.
Tom Fowlkes18IMG-8616.jpg
Shipping containers sit at the Port of Balboa, at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal. The new locks are expected to increase trade through the canal from $270 billion to an estimated $635 billion a year.
