Taylor Swift fans caused an EARTHQUAKE by dancing so hard in Edinburgh during the star’s Eras Tour – with ‘Ready For It?’ causing the ground to shake the most

Taylor Swift might have said she would Shake It Off, but no one could have expected she meant it so literally. From last Friday to Sunday, over 220,000 Swifties flocked to Edinburgh’s Murrayfield stadium to catch the Scottish leg of the American superstar’s Eras Tour. Their synchronized dancing was so enthusiastic that it triggered an earthquake which could be picked up by seismologists more than 3.7 miles (six kilometers) away.

Thanks to Swift’s identical performances each night, scientists have even been able to figure out which songs got the biggest reaction. And while Shake it Off might have been fitting, it was the 2017 hit Ready For It? which sent the biggest shockwaves through Scotland. Taylor Swift’s musical vibrations were recorded by researchers from the British Geological Survey (BGS) working at a monitoring centre in Edinburgh.

These experts usually use their sensitive equipment to detect earthquakes, but on Monday the team spotted a different kind of activity in their recordings. Because Swift’s performances are so precisely choreographed, the data from each of the three nights could be layered together to filter out the background noise of Edinburgh. What they found was a series of clear spikes showing the exact moments when the fans’ favorite songs started to play.

Callum Harrison, a seismologist for the BGS, says: ‘It’s amazing that we’ve been able to measure the reaction of thousands of concert goers remotely through our data. ‘Clearly Scotland’s reputation for providing some of the most enthusiastic audiences remains well intact!’ The BGS was able to spot fans dancing to Shake It Off, Cruel Summer, and even detected a tremor caused by the four-minute applause to Champagne Problems.

However, it was Ready For It? that produced the biggest seismic spike as fans transmitted energy equivalent to 6,000 car batteries directly into the Earth at 160 bpm. The seismic data even shows which night was the liveliest, with Friday night coming out on top based on the distance the ground moved. At its peak on Friday, the Earth was displaced by 23.4 nanometres, compared with 22.8 nm and 23.3 nm on the Saturday and Sunday respectively.

However, the BGS says that the tremors wouldn’t have been strong enough to be felt outside the stadium. Earthquakes typically release energy very quickly, in a quick burst lasting seconds rather than the length of a whole song. Even though the energy released during a song might have been the same as a small earthquake, the amount of shaking is a lot lower.

Yet while the displacement might have been small by the standards of earthquakes and isn’t even big enough to earn a magnitude ranking, it is massive for a concert. Swift isn’t the first to shake Murrayfield stadium, but her performances over the weekend dwarf previous records. Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour only managed to move the ground 14nm while Bruce Springsteen’s fans only managed a paltry 1.8nm.