Taylor Swift's Seattle Concert Caused Seismic Activity Equivalent of 2.3 Magnitude Earthquake

etonline.com:

Taylor Swift is shaking it off the charts. One of the pop superstar's recent performances at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington, triggered seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake, according to local seismologists.

The earth-rattling event — dubbed «Swift Quake» — was not classified as an actual earthquake, but did record a maximum ground acceleration of about 0.011 meters per second squared, Western Washington University geology professor Jackie Caplan-Auerbach told.

The occurrence is being compared to 2011's «Beast Quake» in the same stadium, which was triggered by the NFL's Seattle Seahawks fans after a touchdown by Marshawn «Beast Mode» Lynch.

Caplan-Auerbach first looked into the data surrounding Swift's shows on July 22 and 23 after noticing chatter in a social media group she monitors about Pacific Northwest earthquakes.«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 did the ground shake,» she told Seattle's King 5 News.«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.“ In an interview with CNN, Caplan-Auerbach noted that the discrepancy between the two instances is primarily due to the nature of a sporting event versus a concert. „The shaking was twice as strong as 'Beast Quake.' It absolutely doubled it,“ she shared. „The primary difference is the duration of shaking,“ she continued. „Cheering after a touchdown lasts for a couple seconds, but eventually it dies down.