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The FanQuakes project is a collaborative effort between Ohio State University, Miami University, and the Ohio Geological Survey started in 2016 to measure how much Ohio State fans are "Shaking The Shoe" during football games at Ohio Stadium.
Special UPDATE: We are expanding our project to include concerts in Ohio Stadium, starting with the Taylor Swift concert on July 7, 2018! Results will be posted here after the show.
To help explain, here's an example that shows an exciting interception return by Ohio State for a touchdown on the fourth play of the 2016 game versus Nebraska. The shaking generated by the fans jumping up-and-down is shown across the bottom of the video.
How do we record the FanQuakes?
The FanQuakes project was inspired by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network that recorded the infamous BeastQuake during a Seattle Seahawks playoff game. Building on the their efforts, we have installed seismometers in Ohio Stadium to record how much the stadium shakes during football games. Here is a photo of Shannon Fasola, the student director of seismometer deployments at Miami University, installing our first instrument in collaboration with Ohio State and the Ohio Geological Survey:
The seismometer is directly on the concrete floor because the carpet would muffle the ground shaking. Shannon is using the compass to orient the seismometer because we record all 3 directions of motion: up-down, north-south, and east-west. The cell modem allows us to collect the recordings in realtime. In this location, we can connect the power cord to a wall adapter, but usually we record outside when we are looking for regular earthquakes so we typically use car batteries with solar panels, like this site in eastern Ohio where we are investigating earthquakes associated with hydraulic fracturing:
Where do we record the FanQuakes?
We have recorded in four locations of the stadium. We started in an office underneath the stadium. The recordings were so awesome we looked for other places to record too. With the help of stadium staff, we found locations near the top of the south stands (the student section) and near the top of the north stands (near the flagpole). The new sites have recorded even better signals. Our latest location is near the press box so we can connect to the internet and report about FanQuakes more quickly during the games.
What generates the biggest FanQuakes?
So far, we think there are 2 key ingredients:
Ingredient #1: Exciting football plays!
Here's an example of a great kickoff return versus Indiana:
This was the largest FanQuake during the entire 2016 Indiana game, which is impressive considering how much there was to cheer about in Ohio State winning 37-17. It taught us that that long duration plays generate a lot of fan excitement - think of fans jumping up and down while cheering Go! Go! Go!
Ingredient #2: Music you can jump to!
Once we placed an instrument at the top of the student section, we found that the Ohio State students generate the largest FanQuakes. And our recordings suggested that fun songs after exciting plays generated some of the biggest FanQuakes we had ever recorded. Here's a video of the long touchdown pass to Curtis Samuel on the first play from scrimmage in the second half versus Nebraska in 2016. The FanQuake gets even stronger after he scores when the fans are dancing to the Buckeye Battle Cry.
The stands appear to be resonating during the fight song, but we think that's because the fans are jumping in unison to a musical beat. The best evidence of this can be found in the FanQuake back-and-forth shaking that matches the beat of the White Stripes Seven Nation Army song that the fans sing right before the next kickoff (high frequency curve):
Which ingredient is more important?
Well at first we thought that the music played a bigger role, but those games were mostly blow-out wins so we think the music helped fans keep the fans bouncing around. We learned the real answer during the double-overtime thriller versus Michigan in 2016. Here are the FanQuake magnitudes for the key Ohio State plays in that game:
Mag Play-Sequence
----- ----------------------
5.27 Opening Kickoff
5.45 Pick-6
5.65 Interception & Weber-TD
4.57 Tying FG
5.70 1st OT TD
5.79 Winning TD
Each touchdown generated a bigger magnitude as Ohio State made their comeback and the excitement kept building. And as you can see, the late field goal just didn't do much to get fans jumping -- they were probably just relieved he didn't miss that third field goal attempt.
How do we calculate a FanQuake Magnitude?
To help people understand how big different FanQuakes are, we created the FanQuakes Magnitude Scale. We thought the best way to calculate them would be to estimate the fan shaking compared to how much regular natural earthquakes would shake the stadium. The Ohio Geological Survey is responsible for measuring natural earthquakes all across Ohio, so we are following their approach. We measure the shaking with a seismometer and then find the equivalent magnitude of a natural earthquake if it occurred 10 km below the stadium. Since earthquakes that close to the stadium would produce shaking that lasts for about a second or less, we treat the shaking from fans that lasts many seconds as a swarm of earthquakes beneath the stadium. We sum up the magnitudes every second, so the number grows during a fan shaking event.
Why are we doing this?
Scientists like sports too! It's amazing how much you can learn about how the world works when you're having fun. And it's fun! We were inspired by the dedication of players, coaches, and fans that all contribute to making exciting plays and corresponding FanQuakes.
Thank you all for making this project possible!!
FanQuakes Project Team
(Mike Brudzinski, Derek Sawyer, Shannon Fasola, Ann Cook, Wendy Panero, Jeff Fox, Daniel Blake)
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