UCL team records ground shaking at Taylor Swift concerts

The instruments recorded ground seismic waves generated by fans dancing within and outside Wembley Stadium over three nights, from 21st to 23rd June.

The opening night recorded the greatest levels of ground motion of the three dates with Earth movement up to a maximum of 0.03 mm (the size of a very fine hair). ‘Love Story’ produced the strongest ground shaking, equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude around 0.8, followed closely by ‘Shake It Off’.

The team, who were invited to install the seismometers by Wembley Park, were led by geophysicists Professor Ana Ferreira and Dr Stephen Hicks (both UCL Earth Sciences), with instruments shared by UK-based manufacturer Güralp Systems Ltd and University of Oxford’s Dr Paula Koelemeijer.

Professor Ferreira and her team detect and study a wide range of phenomena using seismic data. In a previous project, the team placed 50 seismometers on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, detecting whale songs as well as the 2022 Tonga earthquake on the other side of the planet.

Professor Ferreira said: “Taylor Swift fans were clearly having the time of their lives in Wembley Park during Taylor’s first London concerts.

“With our instruments we were able to ‘listen’ to the Earth's heartbeat which was certainly beating fast during songs such as ‘Love Story’ which produced energy in the ground equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude around 0.8.

“This is a great testimony of how even a so-called small magnitude event is actually ‘big’, being generated by such a huge and enthusiastic dancing crowd.” 

Dr Stephen Hicks said: “Amazingly, each of Taylor’s concerts over the three consecutive days at Wembley produce near-identical seismic signals, which is quite a unique phenomenon in nature. This gives us quite a novel opportunity to probe the subsurface environment beneath urban areas and to compare between different cities around the world where Taylor has performed.” 

Paul Burke, a PhD student in palaeontology at UCL Earth Sciences, said: “Being a Swiftie since I was 13, I never thought my job as a researcher at UCL and Taylor Swift would collide together. Taylor brings so much joy to so many people and there’s a feeling you get from going to her concert that you cannot replicate.

“We got to use science to measure seismic activity during her concerts at Wembley, showing the fun applications science has and the importance of it.

“Hopefully this experiment leads to the public being more aware of all the great science we do at UCL and all the fun things we can do with it.”

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Links

• Professor Ana Ferreira’s academic profile
• Professor Stephen Hicks’s academic profile
• UCL News story – ‘Deep-sea devices ‘hear’ earthquakes, singing whales and an exploding ship’
• UPFLOW
• UCL Earth Sciences
• UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences
• Media coverage

Images

• Top: UCL Earth Sciences seismology team at the ‘Swiftie Steps’, Wembley Park. Credit: Chris Winter / Wembley Park
• Middle: Spectrogram showing the frequency content of the seismic signal on Friday 21st June 2024 at Wembley Park. Credit: Dr Stephen Hicks, UCL.
• Bottom: A sonified version of Taylor Swift’s concert at Wembley Stadium on Friday 21st June with medley emphasising the different natural dancing frequencies for the songs. Credit: Dr Stephen Hicks, UCL.

Media contact

Mark Greaves

m.greaves [at] ucl.ac.uk

+44 (0)20 3108 9485