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World's Tallest Building Causing Earthquakes?
IZ Reloaded writes "A geologist thinks that the increase in the number of earthquakes in Taiwan is due to Taipei 101, the world's tallest building. CNN reports: 'Lin said Taipei 101 weighed 700,000 tons and estimated stress from vertical loading on its foundation at 4.7 bars, of which some would be transferred to the earth's upper crust due to extremely soft sedimentary rocks beneath the Taipei basin. If a fault is about to crack, then a little pressure can trigger an earthquake. It's like the last straw that breaks the camel's back.'" More from The Guardian.
Correlation does not imply causation. It's not just a saying: it's the law! :)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Think of how a 50kg woman in stilletto heels leaves dents in wood floors where a 90kg man in sneakers doesn't.
This is a boring sig
Any time we think that we can really have a big impact on nature, we're proven wrong. We've spent billions of dollars on levees for New Orleans, yet one small category 3 hurricane is all it takes to breech them. We build sea walls to hold back the ocean, yet after one or two powerful storms they disappear with little or no evidence they ever existed. Tsunamis can level entire coastlines.
The notion that a single building can cause earthquakes is totally preposterous. This sounds more like someone trying to justify a grant or raise money than any serious science.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that this fact is true: "Taipei 101 is triggering earthquakes".
Some posts immediatly labeled this fact as a negative consequence; citing one line, Often, there are unintended negative consequences to what we do no matter how good the planning is. Actually, this is not the case.
Taipei lies on the western boundary of the Philippine Sea plate; as the plates move, they accumulate energy on the boundary. Lin Cheng-horng wrote that Taipei 101 may be triggering many sismic events of magnitude 2.0 to 3.8. So this micro earthquakes are releasing energy. If Taipei 101 was not there, then this energy would accomulate to a point where a massive earthquake would occur. The more energy is released in small sismic events, the less will appear in a large earthquake (capable of destroying houses and killing people).
So, the aforementioned fact is a positive consequence.
- Density of really light rock: ~ 1.2 tons/cubic meter
- Assume "supporting area" around the building: 1000 meters square
- Assume "supporting depth" of tectonic plate: 10km meters deep
- Volume of: 10^10 cubic meters
- Weight of that area around the building: 1.2 x 10^10 tons
- Building, fraction thereof: 0.00055
As a real rough calculation, the weight of the building is negligible.Your examples merely demonstrate that nature* can have a large impact on us whatever we do. But you're assuming the converse is true--that therefore we cannot have any impact on nature no matter what we do. That does not logically follow. Nature is incredibly diverse; there is little to no connection between hurricanes in the Gulf Coast and earthquakes in Thailand. You might as well be saying "I can't break this boulder with my hammer, therefore we'll never cause a species to go extinct."
More specifically, if you believe human activity cannot affect seismic activity, I encourage you to read up on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal fluid injection study. In fact, here's a good overview of the various ways in which humans affect seismic activity.
*And don't get be started on this word, which is fraught with interpretative baggage. Remember that scientifically we are part of nature too, so it's not a question of "humanity" affecting "nature," but rather one aspect of nature affecting another.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.