On Thursday (18), a new article showed exactly what happens. The reason is not the music, but the jumping of the 70,000 fans gathered.
Seismologists from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in Inglewood deployed seismic sensors inside a California stadium to investigate another concert and collect data from the regional seismic 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.
This Mercalli Intensity Scale is used to assess the effects of an earthquake in a given area. Unlike the Richter Scale, which measures the magnitude of the earthquake, it focuses on the effects perceived by people, structures and the environment in general.
Furthermore, based on the spectrograms, the seismologists were able to determine the energy released by the spectators and used this to calculate an equivalent magnitude for each song. The highest was 0.85.
Taylor Swift's most earthshaking songs
Then the group realized that each tremor usually had a seismic frequency synchronized with the beat of the song.
Interestingly, the data also revealed which Taylor Swift songs triggered the most intense seismic signals: Shake It Off, You Belong with Me and Love Story.
The study also made a comparison with other concerts such as Metallica, Morgan Wallen and Beyoncé. To do this, the researchers also placed seismic sensors near the stadium. But get this: Swift's concerts had the most intense seismic signals.
But what justifies this Swift earthquake that doesn't extend to other artists? Actually, there's not much to go on. Scientists suspect that the differences are due to how "dancey" the music is.
The article describes that Beyoncé's concert had sounds in which the spectators "swayed rather than jumped". Similarly, the movements of Metallica fans did not produce constant, repetitive vibrations like those made by the
