Seattle Seahawks Stadium Used for Earthquake Research

This Sunday the Seattle Seahawks will host the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game. Many believe Seattle has one of the best home field advantage’s in the NFL due to the amount of noise their fans create. While it is not one of the largest stadiums in the NFL, Seattle’s CenturyLink Field is certainly the loudest.  This weekend, representatives from the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network will be studying the stadium for earthquake research. They plan on placing three seismometers around the stadium including one near the top of the stadium and one near the ground.

As the game goes on and the fans start causing the stadium to shake, researchers plan on to compare the differences between what the ground is doing and what the stadium is doing. The researchers were inspired by a moment that occurred four years ago at CenturyLink Field. Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch had one of the most memorable runs in NFL playoff history by running 67 yards for a touchdown while breaking eight tackles in the process. The crowd’s response was so strong that it produced a seismic tremor at the nearby earthquake monitoring station near the stadium.

The researchers from University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network have done expirements at the stadium before, but newer technology will now display vibrations within three second instead of 15-30 seconds that the equipment they used last year allowed. Fans watching the game at home will be able to monitor the stadiums vibrations online. In addition to getting data about the stadiums vibrations, researchers are also hoping to test their websites ability to deal with traffic so they can determine problems they would have in the event of a real earthquake.

Check out the video here to learn more about the researchers' plan.