Is dynamite an appropriate technology for earthworks?

I searched this forum and it returned no hits for the word "dynamite." I don't know much about it. I googled dynamite earthworks and there's an excavating contractor in Australia whose Facebook page shows a bunch of diesel machinery.

It seems like dynamite could be an alternative or addition to the machines for some.

I've seen engineering use dynamite to, say, carve a road out of a rocky mountainside. But that's not earthworks - that's roadworks Dynamite is usually used to get something solid out of the way. Earthworks assumes you're working with "earth". Earthworks are created to capture water and create a beneficial growing environment. Earthworks use a lighter, more creative and precise touch than one could get with dynamite.

I'm trying to envision a situation where dynamite would be useful and nothing is coming immediately to mind. Did you have a specific situation you were contemplating

Another drawback to dynamite is that it is usually controlled (understandably so) so I don't think it's a ready resource for most people, whereas hiring an earthmover is accessible in most places.

I'm surprised a picture of Uncle Fester didn't come up in your Google search.

My father's best friend in high school was a rancher kid and in the 1950s their chores would sometimes consist of buying dynamite at the feed store and using partial sticks to excavate post holes for fencing. My impression is that they were working in stony soil that was hard to dig, but they could readily drive a blasting hole with bar and sledge. I don't see why you couldn't adapt that method for helping dig large swales if you live somewhere that dynamite is still casually available. But in the US at least, dynamite is not so easy to get any more.

I have seen it be used to dig a deep pond where it was only a few feet to bedrock. I have also seen them need to line the pond when done because they cracked the bedrock.

I have herd Sepp tell two stories about using Dynamite, mostly up in the mountains when trying to get rocks out of the way. One in particular they were building a keyway dam and they needed to connect the clay to a lower layer of bedrock.

Bill Puckett wrote:I searched this forum and it returned no hits for the word "dynamite." I don't know much about it. I googled dynamite earthworks and there's an excavating contractor in Australia whose Facebook page shows a bunch of diesel machinery.

It seems like dynamite could be an alternative or addition to the machines for some.