During Taylor Swift’s groundbreaking Era’s Tour, Swifties caused such a bustle at her Washington concerts that they caused the equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake - trumping the headlining “Beastquake” in 2011.
“This was much bigger,” Western Washington University seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach told King 5 News after comparing the two’s tectonic activity, The New York Post reports.
The earth-shaking phenomenon happened over the weekend as the Reputation singer performed during her sold-out, back-to-back shows of more than 144,000 people at Lumen Field, according to The Seattle Times.
What the multiple-Grammy-winning pop star didn’t realise is that her show would prove groundbreaking in the seismic sense: The activity from the three and a half hour concert caused quite a ruckus on a seismometer located next to the stadium, which prompted Caplan-Auerback to study the activity to see if it eclipsed the former Lumen record set by the Beastquake.
Beastquake was a seminal event that occurred after Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch scored a touchdown and the watchers of the game went wild.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during her Eras Tour show at Soldier Field on June 2 in Chicago, Illinois. Photo / Getty Images
In order to accurately compare the two events tectonically, Caplan-Auerbach first looked at data from the two Eras Tour shows.
“I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” the scientist shared via CNN. “If I overlay them on top of each other, they’re nearly identical.”
The only difference between the two was that the Sunday show was delayed by 26 minutes - a fact that was confirmed by Swifties online who said the concert was running half an hour late.
Caplan-Auerbach then cross-referenced the data with the results of the “Beastquake” and found that the difference was only around 0.3 on the seismometer.
However, she said that when looking at the overall magnitude, “Swifties have it in the bag.”
Taylor Swift enjoys a light-hearted moment during her Eras Tour performance at Paycor Stadium on June 30 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Photo / Getty Images
“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,” she added, noting that Taylor Swift shows went on for hours, while the 2011 post-touchdown celebrations only lasted a few seconds.
So, which songs elicited the record-breaking Tayquake?
Mouse Reusch, a seismologist at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, used a sonogram to pinpoint the songs performed when the ground shook. The tunes that came out on top and allegedly caused the Tay Tay-induced tremors were Blank Space and, ironically, Shake It Off.
And the fans’ excitement not only registered on the Richter scale - Swift herself praised the Washington concertgoers for their seismic energy in a social media post on Monday.
“Seattle that was genuinely one of my favourite weekends ever,” the Bad Blood songstress wrote. “Thank you for everything. All the cheering, screaming, jumping, dancing, singing at the top of your lungs.”
