Taylor Swift fans cause real seismic vibrations in her concerts, according to study

In August 2023, her concert in Los Angeles gave scientists more than just music to reflect on. More than 70,000 people attended the Taylor Swift phenomenon concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. What caught the attention of researchers was an earthquake record or “distinguished harmonic vibrations”. They previously felt that the musical rhythms or echoes of sound systems caused harmonic vibrations. However, it turned out that earthquakes were caused by fans dancing and jumping on Swift’s songs. She, led by Caltech’s Gabrielle Tepp, discovered that the concert’s unique vibrations were caused by crowd movement rather than by music itself. Researchers identified distinct seismic signals corresponding to each song using spectrograms. They found that each Swift song had its own separate vibration signal, with the “Shake It Off” having the highest. “This energy was released in a few minutes rather than in a second as is the case with an earthquake of this magnitude. Based on the maximum intensity of the vibration, the strongest vibration was equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 2 Richter,” Tepp said. The experiments further confirmed that the movement of the crowd created harmonious vibrations. “Even though I wasn’t very good at staying at the same point – I ended up jumping in a small circle, as in a concert – I was surprised at how clean the signal came out,” Tepp said. Decode signals The investigation began on the occasion of the 2.3 degree Richter earthquake during the Eras tour concert in Seattle. The California Emergency Services Bureau invited researchers to investigate whether some interesting findings could be extracted from Swift’s August concert in Los Angeles. Tepp and her team took the opportunity and installed powerful motion sensors at the SoFi stadium. The study used data from these sensors and information from nearby seismic network stations. “Previous investigations show that the “consortial terror” can be recorded as long-term signals with a narrow band, harmonic frequency peaks between 1 and 10 hertz. This low frequency signal resembles the harmonic horror recorded by natural sources such as volcanoes and human sources such as trains”, explains the press release of the Emergency Services Office.