Slashdot Mirror
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.
Whats more interesting is the Boeing Everett plant mentioned in that link has its own weather. I saw a special on it on the history channel and it said how it can rain inside the building. This along with the building mentioned in the article shows how humans can not assume their pride or ambition can overcome the forces of nature. You can construct a strong building, but if the foundation is made of quicksand over a fault line, it just might sink.
Oh good lord...this whole article is now going to degenerate into a discussion of what is really meant by "tallest" and "largest".
I live in Chicago, and people still try to make the argument that if you count from the sub-sub-sub-sub-basement to the top of the tranmission spikes, then the Sears Tower is still the world's {largest | tallest}.
I guess bragging rights still must count for something.
By releasing the energy more frequently, this should reduce large earthquakes. Maybe more of these buildings should be built in quake-prone areas.
I once calculated that if you spin around in an office chair, you rob the day of about 10^-35 seconds.
Of course, that's if you spin counterclockwise. Clockwise slows the earth down and lengthens the day.
If you wanna be precise, multiply by the sine of your latitude -- on the equator, it has no effect.
Of course, if you want to be precise, do the calculation yourself. I worked it out a long time ago while sitting in a spinning chair at a long overnight security guard shift. It might've been 1/10^35th of a DAY, or something. It's probably right to within a factor of ten million (10^7) and depends on how fat you are and how you hold your arms and legs.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
If you covered all the land on one hemisphere of the earth with elephants, you could shift the axis of rotation by perhaps a foot.
But the actual point around which the axis is rotating already wobbles over the course of a year or so in an irregular circle up to 50 feet across. (there are also other drifts over the course of centuries).
This means the "North Pole" you see in pictures (I think there's a barber post stuck in the South Pole) is a rough average, and the actual pole could be yards away. It exists precisely, but it wanders.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
BBC brought the story a day earlier, shorter, no "feet" balast and with a bit more details. In particular they mention that the distance of Tapei 101 to the ancient earthquake fault (inactive for 45,000 years) is 200m, and they also point out that some people doubt that the tower is causing earth quake (not that I want to take sides).
t m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4493360.s
1. We (America) built many of the original "tallest" skyscrapers.
;)
2. In order for the rest of the world to remain architecturally competitive, they were forced to build taller and taller buildings.
3. After a certain point, those tall buildings may eventually cause earthquake resulting in economic damage for that country.
A rather dastardly plan, eh?
What is the quote about not knowing history and being doomed to repeat it?
Be careful when making sweeping claims that something man-made will stand up to Mother Nature, she has a tendency to make you look the fool.
Correct. If big buildings cause major earthquakes, then L.A. and San Francisco should have fallen into the sea by now. Not to mention Manhattan...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Just for reference and apocryphal, facilities built near the Alberta Tar Sands take into consideration that a certain tilt for a large installation may happen as voiding occurs underground.
I've had a look at the civil drawings for one of these projects and there are deep piles everywhere. Mind you, this installation was the largest installation of its type ever (2 huge air compressors), so every precaution is taken.
Behind my monitor, on my office wall, is the Edificios del Mundo poster of the tallest buildings in the world, with heights to roof, antenna & spire where appropriate.
Tapei 101: Spire: 508m, Roof: 448m
Sears Tower: Roof: 442m, Antenna: 527m
All well and good, until you consider:
Ostankino Tower, Moscow: Antenna: 540m
CN Tower: Antenna: 553m
More useful diagrams and comparisons here.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
You don't drive piles in manhattan, shit just bottoms out on rock so fast it hurts. Spread footings, caissons with rock sockets, that's what you use.
It must depend where you are in Manhattan. When I worked in the financial district a neighboring 50 story building under construction required weeks of driving I-beams into the ground vertically. The ceaseless bangs of each...successive...pound are pretty difficult to forget. The beams must have been at least 50 ft each.
So, you think communism wasn't destroying the planet itself? I suggest you start reading about the vanishing Aral sea, then about how the level of the Caspian sea evolved during the communist era. And maybe the situation of the nuclear waste spread through eastern Europe and the Arctic may interest you. I'm not refering only to Chernobyl, but about all the intentional dumping of wastes and the indiscriminate use of small nuclear-powered equipment by the military intelligence gathering organizations, which were abandoned in remote places. These are now there to be found by peasants and shepherds who, in at least one well-documented case, carried it home to use for heating.
The aggresion to nature is a consequence of population growth, not of either communism or capitalism. But a capitalist society can respond better, for instance by creating a market for "pollution credits", which have been very effective in many cases.
The article states that the micro quakes have been on the rise since the they started constructing the building.
Now I dunno about you, but I seriously doubt that the tower weighed 700,000 tons from the moment they poured the concrete foundations, which more than likely means the micro quakes simply coincided with the beginning of construction, independant of any outside human activity.
If the quakes increased in number as the building progressed, then it could be possible.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The last I looked, there was nothing small or Cat 3 about Katrina. Damage and tidal surge consistent with a Cat 5 and Katrina did it's worst over quite a large area. The only surprise was NO's levee's held as long as they did.
You're right about location being a factor. Keep in mind that lower Manhattan today is not the same shape as it was 400 years ago. Various forms of fill have been brought in the expand its foot print. The most obvious example is the World Financial Center buildings. Look at pre-1980 photos, you won't see any land in the spot they occupy now. An older example is the where the WTC used to be. When building those towers, they dug through landfill that included artifacts from the 1600's.
In general, no building of size can be built in NYC until they've excavated down to "sounding rock". Yes, a guy actually gets paid to come in with what amounts to an advanced tuning fork and bangs the rock to determine whether it's sufficient.
When we were tunneling for the 3rd water tunnel, the rock was hitting 16,000psi - 20,000psi, if I remember correct. That's so hard that it's unbelievable.
Many people believed that the sold rock substrata was largely responsible for the legendary acoustics of the original Carnegie Hall [widely believed to have produced the most beautiful sound of any concert hall ever built].
Sadly, though, there is widespread agreement among old-timers that the acoustics were permanently ruined by the 1986 "renovation". [Or at least there was widespread agreement amongst old-timers back in 1986; now, almost 20 years later, there are precious few NYers who possess a living memory of e.g. Toscanini conducting in the old, pre-renovation hall].