If you thought Taylor Swift was a phenomenon, you haven't seen anything yet: Last year, the singer's concerts generated seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3-magnitude earthquake in Seattle. This Thursday (18), a new article showed exactly what is happening. The reason is not the music, but the 70,000 fans jumping together.

Seismologists at the California Institute of Technology Pasadena in Inglewood deployed seismic sensors inside California Stadium to investigate another concert and collect data from the regional earthquake monitoring network.

Using a motion sensor inside the stadium, the team realized that the strongest shaking occurred between II and III on the Mercalli intensity scale.

The Mercalli intensity scale is used to evaluate the effects of an earthquake in a specific area. Unlike the Richter scale, which measures the strength of an earthquake, it focuses on the impacts perceived by people, structures, and the environment in general.

Furthermore, based on the spectrograms, seismologists were able to determine the energy released by the spectators and used it to calculate an equivalent volume for each song. The highest level was 0.85.

Taylor Swift's most “earthquake” song.

The group then realized that each song had a seismic frequency synchronized with the beat of the song.

The interesting thing is that the data from the show also revealed which Taylor Swift songs caused the strongest seismic signals: get rid of, you belong with me that it love story.

The study also compared it to other acts such as Metallica, Morgan Wallen and Beyoncé. To achieve this, the researchers also placed seismic sensors near the stadium. But get this: Swift's performances had the strongest seismic signals.

But what justifies this rapid earthquake that does not extend to other artists? Actually, there's not much to say about it. Scientists suspect that the differences are due to how “danceable” the music is.

The article describes that Beyoncé's concert had sounds of spectators “swaying instead of jumping.” Likewise, the movements of Metallica fans did not produce constant, repetitive vibrations like those produced by Metallica fans. com. swifties.

In addition to this new study based on the California show, the Seattle shows we mentioned have also produced articles. The group compared seismic signals to a pre-concert sound check, a show with jumping fans and Swift's acoustic set during which the band is not playing. All this to conclude that the “earthquake” comes from the fans and not from the music.

source: Eos, Geological Society of America