COLUMBUS – A 105,000-seat stadium chock-full of screaming fans can certainly raise a ruckus, but can they make the earth move under their feet?
Some researchers at Ohio State and Miami University say they sure can and they are measuring “fan quakes” at Ohio Stadium to help teach students concepts in geology that are sometimes hard to grasp.
“We’ll feature the measurements in classes, so that undergraduates can engage with real-world data and connect it to an experience many of them have had in person,” said project leader Derek Sawyer, assistant professor of earth sciences at Ohio State. “At a more advanced level, we’ll use the data to teach data reduction and collection as well as wave propagation, earthquakes and the local geology. We’ve already achieved some exciting preliminary results.”
In partnership with Miami University and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Sawyer, associate professor Wendy Panero and assistant professor Ann Cook, all in OSU’s School of Earth Sciences, conceived of the project at the start of the 2016 football season and created a “FanQuakes Magnitude Scale,” which converts shaking from fans into the perceived magnitude of a naturally occurring earthquake centered about 6.2 miles below Ohio Stadium.
The largest fan quake they recorded so far was triggered by Curtis Samuel’s touchdown catch at the beginning of the second half versus Nebraska on Nov. 5. The shaking lasted more than two minutes and reached a FanQuake Magnitude of 5.2. Damon Webb’s interception return for a touchdown in the first quarter generated a 5.1-magnitude quake (see video above).
One of their earliest findings indicated that music from marching band amplifies fan quakes in a way they didn’t expect.
“The music helps the fans to jump in unison, which leads to even stronger shaking of the stands,” said Miami geologist Michael Brudzinski.
The Seattle Seahawks measured fan quakes first, inspired by the “Beast Quake” in a 2011 playoff game (left) during which running back Marshawn Lynch scored on a touchdown run, and the resulting celebration registered on seismographs outside Century Link Field.
Sawyer and his team wanted Ohio State to be the first university to measure fan quakes, and with a stadium that seats at least 30,000 more people than the Seahawks’, they knew they’d record some big seismic activity.
They are looking forward to measuring fan quakes generated during the Nov. 26 game against Michigan, when fans may, in Brudzinski’s words, “take it to another level.”