The excitement of 70,000 Swifties can shake the Earth
As recorded by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
“Shake, shake, shake, shake,” Taylor Swift sings from the stage of Lumen Field in Seattle at 10.35 in the evening on July 22nd. The fans respond, enthusiastically; the stadium duly shakes; a nearby seismometer takes note. To pop aficionados “Shake it off” is an empowering up-tempo anthem played at 160 beats per minute. To the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, which is designed to monitor earthquakes, it is a 2.6 hertz signal in which the amplitude of the acceleration was as large as one centimetre per second, per second.
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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Look what you made me do”
From the December 16th 2023 edition
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