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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L22313, doi:10.1029/2005GL024223, 2005

Seismicity increase after the construction of the world's tallest building: An active blind fault beneath the Taipei 101

Cheng-Horng Lin

Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan


Abstract

Seismic activity began to slightly increase during the construction but rose sharply upon the completion of the tallest building in the world, the Taipei 101, which stands at 508 m in the Taipei basin, where local seismicity had historically very low. Besides an increase in both seismic energy and the number of micro-earthquakes, two felt earthquakes astonishingly occurred beneath the completed building. The focal mechanism of the larger felt earthquake and its aftershocks are indicative of an active blind normal fault just beneath the building. Estimations of the vertical loading of the Taipei 101 show that local stress on its foundation increased at least 4.7 bars, making it seem likely that the increased seismicity was a direct product of the loading of the mega-structure. Further investigations in unison with continuous seismic monitoring must be conducted because the safety of the high-rise building in the Taipei basin be comprehensively assessed.

Received 27 July 2005; accepted 11 October 2005; published 30 November 2005.

Index Terms: 7223 Seismology: Earthquake interaction, forecasting, and prediction (1217, 1242); 7230 Seismology: Seismicity and tectonics (1207, 1217, 1240, 1242); 7299 Seismology: General or miscellaneous.

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Citation: Lin, C.-H. (2005), Seismicity increase after the construction of the world's tallest building: An active blind fault beneath the Taipei 101, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L22313, doi:10.1029/2005GL024223.