The Great Pyramid: 5,000 years of ROI

Those of us who live in San Francisco, where there are earthquakes aplenty and only a couple of buildings older than 200 years old, have a sixth sense for seismic safety. So our antennae went up upon the recent findings explaining how Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza has resisted seismic damage over millennia. Skyler Ware frames the story for SN.

🪨 Seismic science behind the stone

How do you build a structure in an earthquake zone that can last a few hundred years, let alone nearly 5,000? Recent research published in Scientific Reports set out to answer the enduring question of how the pyramid has avoided the destructive vibrations that typically collapse buildings during earthquakes. The researchers didn’t want to shake the iconic pyramid on purpose and potentially damage it, so they experimented with ambient vibrations from ocean waves and city traffic to measure how the pyramid reacts to kinetic energy. The study revealed that the pyramid vibrates differently from the terrain it sits on, which blunts a phenomenon that increases vibrations’ strength — and the risk of damage — during a quake. And the pyramid’s mass-distributing internal design, including clever “pressure-relieving chambers,” effectively dampens seismic waves before they reach the top.