Emphasis on ‘Shake’: Taylor Swift Concerts Producing Minor Earthquakes, Scientists Say
© AP Photo / Evan Agostini
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Fans at pop megastar Taylor Swift’s concerts are cheering and singing so loudly that it’s detectable on seismographic instruments intended to watch for impending earthquakes.
A pair of concerts at Seattle’s Lumen Field earlier this week produced such force that they resembled a 2.3-magnitude earthquake, according to area seismologists, who have dubbed it the “Swift Quake.”
Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a seismology professor and associate dean at Western Washington University, told local media it was only on the second concert night that she recognized a pattern in the shaking her sensors were detecting and was able to pin the concert as the cause.
“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.”
According to the scientist, Swift’s concert well exceeded the shaking caused by the infamous “Beast Quake” in 2011.
“The shaking was twice as strong as ‘Beast Quake,’’ she said. “It absolutely doubled it.”
The so-called “Beast Quake” was a seismic event on January 8, 2011, caused by intense cheering by fans at Lumen Field after Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn “The Beast” Lynch ran 67 yards to score a touchdown in the final minutes of a key National Football League playoff game.
In the end, the play prevented the rival New Orleans Saints from being able to reverse their fortunes.
The Seattle concerts were part of Swift’s “Eras” tour, the singer’s first tour in five years. From the outset, the tour has generated unprecedented hype, with enthusiastic “Swifties” crashing the Ticketmaster website in their attempt to buy tickets the moment they went on sale. The controversy led to congressional hearings and an investigation into Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, for alleged monopoly practices.
Concertgoers told US media that the pop star’s performances were unlike anything they’d experienced, describing them as incredibly high-energy. Ironically, they described the crowd as jumping in unison when Swift played her 2016 hit “Shake it Off.”
Swift, too, commented on the crowds’ energy at the Seattle performances, posting on social media that it was “genuinely one of my favorite weekends ever. Thank you for everything. All the cheering, screaming, jumping, dancing, singing at the top of your lungs.”
