Swifties seemed to shake things off too far.
According to seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auberbach, a local seismometer detected that the Seattle stop of Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ at Lumen Field two weekends ago generated a seismic activity that caused a Magnitude 2.3 earthquake in the area.
Though this is not the first time that a concert registered seismic activity. There are other concerts as well, such as the 2011 Foo Fighters concert in New Zealand and last year’s Garth Brooks concert at Louisiana State University in Baton Rogue. However, seismic magnitudes from those concerts have not been registered.
However, according to Caplan-Auberbach’s post on X, she claimed that it might not be fair to compare the concert to the ‘Beast Quake’ in 2011 when Seattle Seahawks’ Marshawn ‘Beast Mode’ Lynch scored a touchdown, leading to fans’ eruption of cheering. This is because the sound system may have contributed to the seismic activity.
I guess I should show the data. Swifties > Seahawks fans.
(except data from the concert may not be caused by the fans–it may be the sound system, so not really a fair comparison). pic.twitter.com/szwowOYQFi
— Jackie Caplan-Auerbach 🇺🇦 🌻 (@geophysichick) July 27, 2023
“I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” she said in an interview. “If I overlay them on top of each other, they’re nearly identical.”
She noted the difference between the NFL event and the Swifties’ dancing was just 0.3, but said the Swift fans still beat out ‘Beast Quake.’
“The shaking was twice as strong as ‘Beast Quake’. It absolutely doubled it,” she said.
Caplan-Auberbach added that the seismic activity that the concert generated was higher than the football event due to the former’s long hours of singing and dancing by Swifties in the venue – registering seismic data for about 10 hours.
The Seattle leg of The Eras Tour is the second to the last of the whole American stretch of it. Her last U.S. shows would be in California before she commences a world tour part across 5 continents.
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