For her debut in Portugal, Taylor Swift gave two concerts at the Estádio da Luz, which caused seismic waves. During the concert on Saturday, May 26, the song “Shake it Off” had an activity of 0.82 on the Richter scale, recorded at nine seismic stations in the capital.
The Estádio da Luz was the epicenter of a “Swift Quake” that shook Portuguese soil for the first time. Taylor Swift’s energy and the more than 120,000 people who attended her two concerts on May 24 and 25 in Lisbon caused seismic activity.
The most intense shaking was recorded during Saturday’s concert during the song “Shake It Off”: 0.82 on the Richter scale.
The single released in 2014 from the album “1989” is one of the singer’s biggest hits and lived up to her name, but it was not the only one to send shockwaves through the Portuguese capital .
“You Belong With Me” scored 0.80, “Love Story” 0.72 and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” 0.61.
Nine seismic stations located in Lisbon detected the tremors caused by the American star and the “swifties”, the name given to Taylor’s fans. The Professor Delfim Santos primary school in Laranjeiras, closest to the Estádio da Luz, recorded the highest seismic amplitude. In addition to this, the “Taylor mania” was felt six kilometers from the room, at the seismic station located next to Lisbon airport, but with less intensity.
“They are very danceable songs and what happens is that the audience dances to the same rhythm, which is interesting, because when we analyze the seismometer recordings we see differences between the different songs, they dance differently depending on the song”explains Susana Custódio, seismologist and professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, adding that the impact of the concerts was felt “throughout the city of Lisbon”.
Swift earthquakes
The enthusiasm of Taylor Swift fans had already shaken the United States last year, but this time with more intensity.
Two concerts at Lumen Field in Seattle experienced seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. The tremor was twice as strong as the “Best Quake”, the name given to the earthquake that occurred in the same stadium in 2011, when supporters of the Seattle Seahawks football club celebrated the event.
Seismic waves from a concert can last for several minutes, unlike those from an earthquake, which are only felt for a few seconds.
Earthquakes occur when huge plates of the Earth’s crust, called tectonic plates, move. These movements permanently change the ground, while tremors resulting from crowd movements generally do not deform the Earth.