Taylor Swift’s fans took “Shake It Off” to the next level by causing a seismic event during one of her Los Angeles concerts last year, a new study shows.
“It’s been well known that concerts make these harmonic signals and it’s not always been clear as to why,” Caltech seismologist Gabrielle Tepp, who oversaw the study, explained in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times. “This was one thing that we were kind of interested in seeing if we could really nail down what was causing it.”
Tepp and her team’s findings were disclosed in a report earlier this month titled “Shake to the Beat: Exploring the Seismic Signals and Stadium Response of Concerts and Music Fans.”
In the study, it was revealed that when Swift, 34, performed at SoFi Stadium in August 2023 — she brought her record-breaking Eras Tour to L.A. for six nights — 70,000 Swifties jumped and danced around so much in the audience that they created seismic activity and generated “distinct harmonic tremors.”
To get the data, researchers set up motion sensors more than 5.5 miles from the venue on the fifth night of Swift’s residency. The information was then collected and analyzed via spectrograms, or graphs tracking wavelength frequencies.
Of all the songs performed by Swift during her show, the data determined that “Shake It Off” produced the largest local magnitude of 0.85, followed by “Love Story,” which also had a significant amplitude.
The L.A. show wasn’t the first time the Grammy winner caused what’s become known as a “Swift-quake.” Her July 2023 stops at Seattle’s Lumen Field was similarly stated to have resulted in seismic activity, according to CNN, creating an “equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.”
Swift’s Era Tour kicked off in Glendale, Arizona, in March 2023 and has since taken her all across the United States, performing for more than three hours and surprising attendees with new acoustic songs each night. For her international leg, Swift has traveled to South America, Japan, Singapore and Australia.
Swift’s concerts broke multiple attendance records, with the Guinness World Records announcing it was officially the highest-grossing music tour ever, becoming the first to surpass $1 billion dollars in revenue.
While Swift’s Eras Tour will continue overseas in Europe in May, the pop star is currently taking time to relax. Us Weekly confirmed that Swift is vacationing in The Bahamas with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce.
The couple were spotted on an island getaway on Monday, March 18, per photos shared via gossip blog Deux Moi.
In addition to touring, Swift has been working on new music. Her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, will arrive on April 19.
