BeastQuake II wasn’t quite as intense as BeastQuake I, but Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch managed to make the ground shake in Seattle yet again.
Seismologists from the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Seismic Network measured ground motion during Seattle’s 23-15 playoff victory over New Orleans. Just after Lynch’s game-sealing 31-yard fourth quarter touchdown run on Saturday, there was some serious movement underneath CenturyLink Field as Hawks fans went bananas.
But, as PNSN’s data shows above, it didn’t quite cause as much seismic activity as Lynch’s original BeastQuake — an epic 67-yard touchdown run three years ago — which also happened against New Orleans in the playoffs.
Here’s more analysis from UW professor John Vidale, via PNSN’s Facebook page:
Station KDK has spoken. Beastquake 1 (2011), red in the figure, was both larger and lasted longer than Beastquake 2 (2014), black in the figure. But not by a huge amount. At most a factor of two in both. And there are intriguing similarities in the post-score wiggles. We hypothesize they are extra point kick, and replay of run on the jumbotron at the stadium.
The Hawks will host the NFC Championship next Sunday at 3:30 p.m. PST, and PNSN plans to set up devices around the stadium again:
@RW34MVP hopefully we will be back again and with more stations out
— PNSN (@PNSN1) January 12, 2014
As Vidale reminded readers last week, this whole experiment is “a training exercise, to be sure we can deploy instruments to critical locations in an emergency that might be chaotic and cacophonous.”
