In 2005, scientists discovered that a new skyscraper in Taiwan might be causing earthquakes. Called Taipei 101, it was temporarily the tallest building in the world, before towers like the Al Burj were anything but rumors. “At more than 500 metres,” we read back then, “Taipei 101 in Taiwan is the world’s tallest building. But now geologists fear that its size and weight may have transformed a stable area into one susceptible to earthquake activity.”
Conversely, could we build just the right number of these, at just the right spots, throughout the greater Los Angeles basin and thus nail the tectonic plates in place — weighing southern California down and zipping the San Andreas Fault up tight? It’d be seismic acupuncture, a new form of therapy against continental drift. Perhaps one gigantic tower exactly placed in outer Tokyo could make the whole Pacific Rim freeze up.
via: io9
[...] Warning may cause earthquakes… contents may settle during building [...]