The Burj Dubai: Earthquake Generator?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The Burj Dubai is a skyscraper being built in the UAE. Upon completion next year, it will be the tallest manmade structure in the world. (May already be, depending on how far along construction is.)

The Taipei 101 in Taiwan is the previous tallest structure. Apparently, the weight of that building has resulted in increased seismic activity in the ground beneath it. See here and here.

I don’t have a cite for it, but I’ve been told that because of the Taipei 101 seismic activity, there’s a question about what effect the Burj Dubai will have.

2

The Wiki article says it became the tallest structure on April 7, when it surpassed the height of a TV mast in North Dakota.

3

I think this would be an interesting topic for Cecil or the staff.

4

One thing that was stressed by a couple of different professors I had was that large reservoirs will cause increased seismic activity, so you have to be extra careful in finding as many faults as possible when designing dams. They also used the Three Gorges Dam as a place where the earthquakes result in inland tsunamis. I can certainly imagine that any small faults located very near the Burj Dubai may have increased activity due to the increased weight. There is still a massive amount of information we don’t know about earthquakes, hell anything subsurface.

5

Just dashed a note off to the relevant e-mail address. We’ll see if anything develops. Thanks for the suggestion. :wink:

6

Updates on the Burj Dubai’s construction and more can be found here.

7

Are you telling me that the plot of View to a Kill has a basis in fact? You really could make an earthquake by pumping seawater into faulted rock, and setting off a kiloton or so of ANFO? 'Cos that would be pretty cool.

8

Dubai is a good thousand miles or so from the Arabian-Indian plate boundary. Isn’t that far enough to make significant earthquakes pretty unlikely?

9

I don’t doubt that skyscrapers can be built to specs that exceed the ability of their foundations and local strata to provide them adequate support. That some shallow straining and shifting of the ground just beneath would occur comes as no surprise.

But my guess is that the weight of even the heaviest buildings, either gross or tons per foot, would absolutely pale in comparison to that of the crust beneath them and they’d have no effect on movement along those fault systems responsible for the generation of earthquakes.

10

But what if the Taipei 101 jumped off a chair? and shouted?

11

And really obsessive skyscraper geekiness and constant photo updates here. :cool:

(Link currently points to last page of 374-page thread. And I think that’s the 28th thread or something stupid.)

It really is just quite ridiculously, insanely, ludicrously tall, and there are still several hundred feet of spire to go. It’s tall.

I have to see this thing in the flesh one day.

12

I suspect that would look like a boner.

13

I believe at least one fault beneath the Taipei 101 was unknown before. Maybe the Burj Dubai will find some?

As for the weight of the Earth’s crust, maybe that’s spread out more? That of the Burj Dubai and Taipei 101 is more concentrated. Similar to an elephant’s foot exerting less pressure per square inch than a deer’s.

14

There are some great new photos of the Burj Dubai here, here and here.

And again, the skyscaper’s website is here.

15

I wonder how much man made weight the island of Manhattan holds?
Buildings, pavements, subways, sewers, people, cars, etc.

16

This is amazing, but even as the Burj Dubai, which will be the world’s tallest building, nears completion, Dubai has announced plans to construct an even taller building! It will tower more than 1 kilometer into the air. Story here.

Excerpt: “With its world’s tallest building nearing completion, Dubai said today it is embarking on an even more ambitious skyscraper: one that will soar more than 1 km into the air. That’s the height of more than 10 American football fields, 13 Airbus A380 superjumbo jets or three of New York’s Chrysler Buildings stacked end-to-end.”

17

I don’t know about that, but the filling of Lake Mead (the largish pond behind the Hoover Dam) causes a few small earthquakes in the surrounding area as the weight of the water screwed with the tectonic plates.

18

And now we see that the stalled property market in Dubai will not derail plans for this new tallest building, according to the master developer, Nakheel. Story here.

19

Bingo. Taiwan is on the ring of fire. Dubai isn’t close to a major plate boundary. I seriously doubt if it will cause an earthquake. (Unless it holds it breath until it turns blue, in which case all bets are off.)

Hanging some numbers on it, the Wiki article estimates the completed weight of the tower at around 922,000 tons. That is about 1.1 million cubic yards of water, or roughly equivalent to a reservoir about 30 yards deep by 215 yards in diameter. The Three Gorges reservoir contains about 51 billion cubic yards of water spread over 244 square miles. A whole different league.

I think the whole thing is kinda funny. Architects get all damp and fluttery over it, but from a money and utility angle it just doesn’t pencil out. Rather odd and very Freudian.

20

Very, if you ask me. What is their obsession with absurdly giant buildings now? After 9/11, anything taller than a Motel-6 is a target as far as I’m concerned. People will spend their lives obsessing about how to bring these buildings down.