Taylor Swift fans are bringing the house down with their dancing, and causing seismic activity while at it. According to seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, fans who attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Concert in Seattle on July 22 and 23 danced so hard that they caused seismic activity equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.
“I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” Caplan-Auerbach told CNN. “If I overlay them on top of each other, they're nearly identical.”
The “Swift-Quake,” as it is now being called, has drawn comparison to the famous “Beast Quake” of 2011 when Seattle Seahawk fans went wild cheering at an incredible touchdown. Both were detected on the same local seismometer, says Caplan-Auerbach, a geology professor at Western Washington University.
“The primary difference is the duration of shaking,” Caplan-Auerbach explained. “Cheering after a touchdown lasts for a couple seconds, but eventually it dies down. It’s much more random than a concert. For Taylor Swift, I collected about 10 hours of data where rhythm controlled the behavior. The music, the speakers, the beat. All that energy can drive into the ground and shake it.”
The Seattle leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour took place at Lumens Field. Matt Breidenthal, director of engineering at the architecture and engineering firm HOK, told USA TODAY that it is normal for stadiums and large venues to shake when there are a lot of people inside.
“In most cases throughout the day, you don't notice it because it's so small and incremental that it's not worth mentioning or talking about, but then you do have events like this, like a concert or an earthquake,” Breidenthal said.
Swift's concerts have helped boost hotel and restaurant revenue in cities across the world
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