The ground was rumbling as Taylor Swift fans were shaking it too hard at her Eras Tour concerts.
Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a seismologist and geology professor at Western Washington University, determined that fans attending Swift’s recent concert in Seattle caused seismic activity that could be on the same level as a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. The passionate fans dancing so hard paired with the sound system left the ground shaking.
Caplan-Auerbach monitored the seismic activity from the concert and discovered the movement caused by the fans broke the old record of loud movement. Prior to Swift’s concert, the most seismic activity documented at the stadium was the “Beast Quake,” which took place in 2011. It was a result of Seattle Seahawks football fans celebrating Marshawn Lynch’s winning touchdown. In that case, experts believed that the shaking could be similar to a 2.0 magnitude earthquake.
Caplan-Auerbach decided to track the activity after a person asked in a Facebook group if Swift’s concert had beaten the “Beast Quake.” It was possible to find out that answer since there is a seismometer located near the stadium that tracks ground movement.
Based on Caplan-Auerbach’s findings, “the magnitude difference between the ‘Beast Quake’ and the ‘Swift Quake’ was 0.3 but the shaking was twice as strong as ‘Beast Quake.'”
“The other thing is that the ‘Beast Quake’ was a moment in time, you know. It was maybe 20, 30 seconds of incredible crowd joy and celebration and ground shaking, whereas the Taylor Swift concert was hours of this,” she added.
Caplan-Auerbach tracked the seismic activity from both nights of Swift’s concert and discovered that the activity was about the same. She believes that was the case since the song list was similar except for the two surprise songs that Taylor Swift plays.
“Given that the setlists were the same for most of the concert, I know they should be similar. The waveforms, the wiggles should be the same for most of those songs, but they should be different for the surprise songs. So that’s one of the hypotheses that we can test,” she said. “It’ll confirm for us whether what we’re seeing is unique to a given song. If that portion of the concert is different between the two nights.”
If you’re at an event in a stadium, don’t panic and dart for the nearest exit. Your life is probably not in danger. Matt Breidenthal, director of engineering at the design, architecture, engineering and planning firm HOK, said that it’s normal and safe for stadiums to shake when there is a large crowd of people in it.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/27/entertainment/taylor-swift-seismic-activity/index.html