UW records biggest-ever Seahawks ‘quake’
Jan 21, 2015, 12:40 PM | Updated: 1:47 pm
Earthquake experts monitoring CenturyLink Field Sunday say the biggest event was caused by all the jumping and dancing that followed Marshawn Lynch’s touchdown and 2-point conversion as Seattle rallied at the end of regulation time.
The University of Washington’s Steve Malone calls it a “dance quake” generated by bouncing fans.
Malone says that dance quake was the biggest seismic signal associated with a Seahawks game — even bigger than the 2011 “beast quake” that followed a Marshawn Lynch touchdown run and originally drew the attention of earthquake trackers.
That “beast quake” only lasted about 30-40 seconds and then died away.
“This dance quake – we think it was in time to a Macklemore song that they were playing. The crowd was just excited and dancing, and they kept it up for a solid minute,” explained UW seismologist John Vidale.
He said he heard that people in the press box thought it might be a real earthquake.
Pacific Northwest Seismic Network was tracking the activity at CenturyLink Field in real time on its website, so you would have seen the needles hopping before the TV delay.
Other earthshaking events Sunday were Seattle’s fake field goal touchdown and the winning touchdown in overtime.
“The final touchdown was big, but only two-thirds as big,” Vidale said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
