Big aquariums and earthquakes

Article

Live stream

I have no faith in the stability of these links, but they should show a live feed of the Toronto aquarium.

Earthquakes

We have no experience on what happens to a big aquarium when the PGV rises.  I think they are probably like large oil tanks.  We might expect cracks at 20 cm/s, and seam rupture at 50 cm/s.

Of all the big aquariums, Boston is at highest risk.  It is probably on a typical raft foundation over Blue Clay, and the design is a big cylindrical oil tank.  I don't think people are at any more risk than a nearby Costco on the same stuff.

Chicago has the least risk, and Toronto is somewhere in between.  I'm interested in Toronto because of the quasi-rock it is on.  When the CN tower was being designed, they drilled 3 exploration holes, large enough to lower a junior geotechnical engineer.  It was in badly mangled shale.  In fact, there was no bedding similarity with all three holes.  They ended up pouring the foundation on the least-bad rock layer, above another clay seam.  The aquarium is on the same stuff.  So, is it rock or soft soil?  We'll never know.

*Note that any earthquake strong enough to bust an aquarium will be such that we don't care.  :)