Soccer Fans Confuse Seismologist
A seismologist trying to image the earth’s interior by measuring the propagation of seismic activity in Cameroon, was confused by some data collected in 2006 in which he measured a series of disturbances. Rather than moving across the area as expected, the disturbance was recorded at all of his sensors spread across several cities at the same time.
Turns out, the Cameroon football (soccer) team was playing in the African Cup of Nations that day. They scored eight goals, each of which corresponded to a seismic disturbance, apparently caused by the elated fans all over the country jumping up and down to celebrate.
This is according to the recent Science article, “Goals Rock Nation” (which, unfortunately, you can’t read unless you have a subscription).
A nation of soccer fans = small earthquake. Cool!
Update: I wasn’t going to reproduce the article here, but I found somebody who already did.
