I spend most mornings getting sun and watching construction of Austin's new conference center. I shared some pictures of it being demolished a few weeks ago.

Most of the equipment is pretty self-explanatory but I wasn't sure what this thing on the crawler crane was.

According to ChatGPT it's either a diaphragm wall grab or trench cutter for building a slurry wall. To the left of the crane you can see the trench, and in the front of the picture, the rebar they're going to put in the trench with the slurry before they displace the slurry with concrete.

From the first photo, you can see they're hitting groundwater around 40ft as the Colorado River, aka Lady Bird Lake, is two blocks to the right in the picture. I suspect they're digging this deep because the exhibit hall of the new conference center is going to be underground. (Screenshot taken from this city council presentation.)