Fans who flocked to Seattle for Taylor Swift’s recent back-to-back concerts danced to the popstar’s music with such gumption that it was recorded on the Richter scale.
At her July 22 and 23 concerts at Lumen Field, the fans – dubbed Swifties – generated a seismic event equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.
The Swift concerts beat the last record, dubbed the “Beast Quake,” set back in 2011 when Seahawks fans celebrated a Marshawn Lynch touchdown during a playoff game against the New Orleans Saints.
The difference between the two quakes is only 0.3 on the scale, but the shaking at Swift’s concert was twice as strong, according to geology professor Jackie Caplan-Auerbach.
“Cheering after a touchdown lasts for a couple seconds, but eventually it dies down. It’s much more random than a concert,.” she said. “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.”
Swift acknowledged her fans in an Instagram post, thanking them for “all the cheering, screaming, jumping, dancing, and singing at the top of your lungs” while she performed.
“That was genuinely one of my favourite weekends ever.”