Taylor Swift fans shake it off hard enough to cause an earthquake

Taylor Swift fans, known as Swifties, did more than just shake it off during her Eras Tour concert at Lumen Field last weekend, causing seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3-magnitude earthquake.

Seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a geology professor at Western Washington University, first became aware of the earth-shaking event in a Facebook group she monitors about Pacific Northwest earthquakes. 

She immediately got to work analyzing the data from the two Seattle shows that took place on July 22 and July 23. 

“I grabbed 10 hours of data, from when doors opened to well after I thought the audience had gone home, and I just plotted them out to see how the ground shook,” she told Seattle’s King 5 news.

The data showed that not only did the ground shake, but it shook in an almost identical pattern matching a beat each night. 

“I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” she told CNN. “If I overlay them on top of each other, they’re nearly identical.”

Swifties are in their earthquake era

Caplan-Auerbach did notice a 26-minute difference between the two shows, which was corroborated by fans who attended the event. 

“I asked around and found out the Sunday show was delayed by about half an hour, so that adds up."

The 'Swift Quake' that occurred at the Seattle Eras Tour concert was compared online to the 'Beast Quake' that occured in 2011 when Seattle Seahawks fans erupted in celebration after a touchdown by Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch. 

Both the 'Swift Quake' and the 'Beast Quake' were detected on the same local seismometer, Caplan-Auerbach told CNN.

“I don’t really want to get into a snickering match between Seahawks fans and Swifties but I will say Swifties have it in the bag,” she said. “This was much bigger than the Beast Quake in terms of the raw amplitude of shaking and it went on for a whole lot longer, of course.”

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

“The primary difference is the duration of shaking,” Caplan-Auerbach explained. “Cheering after a touchdown lasts for a couple of 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.”

Tarje Nissen-Meyer, a geophysicist at the University of Oxford said that the vibrations were unsurprising and “basic physics.”

“Vibrations from all sorts of sources continuously excite the earth,” he said. “Having tens of thousands of Swifties dancing in sync then induces a sizable vibrational force onto the ground."

Seismic waves are most commonly used to study natural events such as landslides, glaciers, and ocean weather. However, Nissen-Meyer said that as high-precision seismic instrumentation becomes more accurate, we may hear of such seismic activity from entertainment events more often. 

“Much like we can deduce different earthquake types, one could perhaps discern a Taylor Swift gig from a Bad Religion one, someday. It all depends on the amount of data recorded and processed."

Taylor Swift herself noted the high energy from Swifties at the concert and in an Instagram post she thanked her Seattle audience "for “all the cheering, screaming, jumping, dancing, singing at the top of your lungs.”

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

The Eras Tour, a celebration of Taylor Swift's albums and eras throughout her musical career, began in March and has become the cultural event of the year.

The show is over three hours long with 44 songs on the setlist, divided into 10 acts corresponding to each of her albums and eras. Demand for tickets has been unprecedented, breaking records for ticket sales and venue attendance.

Swift is set to end the US leg of the tour in August, and will then begin the international leg of the tour which will continue into 2024. By the end of the tour, the singer will have performed 131 shows across five continents.