'Shake It Off': How Taylor Swift fans caused tremors in Seattle

When Taylor Swift sang “Shake it off,” she wasn’t joking.

There was a lot of jumping, dancing, screaming, shaking, and loud singing at her most recent shows in Seattle on 22 and 23 July.

The American popstar’s performances at Lumen Field over the weekend resulted in the seismic equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake, according to a seismologist!

It is indeed a record-breaking “Era” for Swifties.

🚨| Taylor Swift performing “Everything Has Changed” at tonight’s show of ‘The Eras Tour’! #TSTheErasTour #SeattleTSTheErasTour

pic.twitter.com/m58ws970JN

— The Eras Tour (@tswifterastour) July 23, 2023

Let’s take a closer look.

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The “Swift Quake”

Seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach estimates that the ever-energetic Swifties at Taylor Swift’s Seattle “Eras” tour concert at Lumen Field generated seismic activity comparable to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake over the course of two nights of earth-shattering dancing.

According to Caplan-Auerbach, the ensuing party was recorded on the same local seismometer as the Swift concert.

Caplan-Auerbach, a Western Washington University geology professor, saw the comparison in a Facebook group she oversees for earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest, and she started working on it right away.

“The figure with blue wiggles is the waveforms, which is just an indication of how hard the ground was shaking, as detected by the seismometer. The red line is when doors allegedly opened (4:30 p.m.), and the green line is when the concert was supposed to start, per the Eras Tour webpage (6:30 p.m.),” she mentioned in a Facebook post.

She was astounded to find similarities in the seismic readings from Taylor’s “Eras” tour performances on both evenings.

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

The second night’s sneaky inclusion of a few surprise songs—a classic move by the queen of surprises herself—was the only difference between Taylor’s musical extravaganza’s two performances.

Imagine the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Movie! #TStheErasTour pic.twitter.com/DavuqfOSTH

— The Eras Tour (@TSTheErasTour) July 21, 2023

Needless to say, every small detail counts in the field of seismic science.

During the performance on 23 July, Caplan-Auerbach found a little time delay of about 26 minutes.

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Compared to “Beast Quake”

The “Swift Quake” has been compared to the 2011 “Beast Quake,” which occurred after running back Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch scored a noteworthy touchdown.

Even though there is just a 0.3 magnitude difference between “Beast Quake” and “Swift Quake,” Caplan-Auerbach claimed that the Swifties outnumber Seahawks supporters. “The shaking was twice as strong as ‘Beast Quake’. It absolutely doubled it.”

“For Taylor Swift, I collected about 10 hours of data where rhythm controlled the behaviour. The music, the speakers, the beat. All that energy can drive into the ground and shake it,” she added.

Even Swift herself acknowledged the enthusiasm of her West Coast Swifties in an Instagram post on Monday, thanking them for “all the cheering, screaming, jumping, dancing, and singing at the top of your lungs.”

“That was genuinely one of my favourite weekends ever,” she added.

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Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour

Swift’s Seattle performances take place as her first tour in five years, the “Eras” tour, nears its conclusion in the United States.

The singer has achieved a number of notable milestones along the way, including smashing Pittsburgh’s attendance record and stimulating regional economies.

On Friday, the “Eras” tour hits the road in Santa Clara, California, and will end with six more performances in Los Angeles the following month.

With “Eras,” Swift then goes global starting on 24 August in Mexico City.

With inputs from agencies