Nothing calms pre-performance jitters quite like a quick "break a leg" before stepping onstage.
With reports of human-induced "earthquakes" making headlines around the world, telling a rock band to "rock the Richter scale" is not far from an impossible task.
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Every so often, there are reports of concerts and sporting events setting off an "earthquake" due to the massive amounts of human energy in synchronization – whether it be cheering, dancing, screaming or all three at once.
Earlier this month, during a concert in Athens, Greece, the world-famous American heavy metal band Metallica drew an enthusiastic audience of 80,000 fans, with the show registering minor tremors on nearby earthquake equipment, Greek news outlet eKathimerini reported.
Can concerts and sporting events actually trigger real earthquakes? According to a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, the answer is no.
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Dr. William Barnhart, assistant coordinator of the USGS Earthquake Hazard Program, said, "There are lots and lots of phenomena on Earth that can cause vibrations in the Earth, and the role of a seismometer, which is a scientific instrument, is to record those vibrations. Earthquakes are one process that produces vibrations and seismometers record them."
So, when 60,000 music lovers, sports fans or humans in general get together – regardless of genre – they often produce human-induced ground vibrations that are picked up by nearby seismometers.
"There are lots of other things that cause those vibrations, too. Really anything that shakes the ground will be picked up by these seismometers. So, if you put a whole bunch of people in a stadium, and they get really excited, and they start cheering and jumping, that creates vibrations that get recorded by these instruments," Dr. Barnhart said.
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This micro-seismic activity, which is, ironically, a fantastic name for a metal band, is recorded using the same seismometers that register earthquakes, but don't drop to your knees just yet.
Dr. Barnhart said it's very easy to mistake the reading from an earthquake.
"The ‘MetalliQuakes,' of course, especially when you start playing ‘Enter Sandman’ and you get everybody moving at the same time and in the same way, then all of a sudden, that noise gets really pronounced because all of that is happening together with the same frequency, so those seismic waves get bigger which get really well recorded on these instruments and look like a really big signal," Dr. Barnhart said.
One such scenario occurred on May 7, 2025, at Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium when a sold-out crowd of over 60,000 produced a "MetalliQuake" that made national headlines during the performance of the group's 1991 hit song "Enter Sandman."
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Whether sparked by a metal concert or a game-winning play, a synchronized stadium eruption may feel earth-shaking in the moment — but it isn't a real earthquake.
One of the earliest and most famous examples of a human-caused seismic event came during one of the defining sports moments of the 2010s, when Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch broke loose for a 67-yard touchdown run to seal a win in the NFL Wild Card playoffs on Jan. 8, 2011 — a moment that became immortalized as the "BeastQuake."
In front of a sold-out crowd of more than 65,000, Lynch's iconic touchdown run garnered enough noise and energy on his goose-chase of a play evading New Orleans Saints defenders to set off a tremor at the nearby Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, with a strength of magnitude 2.0.
The shaking hasn't stopped there.
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Taylor Swift's Era's Tour sent shock waves around the world as the highest-grossing music tour ever – with numerous "SwiftQuakes" recorded on her record-breaking tour.
During her performance of "Shake It Off," Swifties took shaking quite literally. In Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium, the strongest tremor was equivalent to a magnitude 2.0 earthquake during Swift's 2014 hit song, according to a study.
In many cases, for example at Seattle's Lumen Field, the reason why they are recorded is that the stadium is instrumented to see how it would handle a real earthquake.
Engineers then use information from concerts and sporting events as a shaking source that stimulates the building to understand how it will withstand different types of seismic energy, Dr. Barnhart said.
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In regions where earthquakes are particularly common, large stadiums are designed to handle large earthquakes that far exceed that of fans cheering and jumping around to their favorite song or a game-winning touchdown.
While these human-induced ground vibrations pose no real threat other than to opposing fans, that doesn't mean humans haven't done their part in triggering massive, destructive earthquakes.
Induced earthquakes are caused or influenced by human activity, whether it's oil and gas production, wastewater disposal or mining, there is a broad range of earthquakes that are entirely human-caused.
While humans have certainly played a role in triggering significant earthquakes, Swifties, sports fans and metalheads shouldn't fear that their cheering, screaming or dancing alongside thousands of fellow fans will spark the next big one.
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