'Dance quake' beats 'beast quake' in Seahawks victory

The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network released its data analysis from the NFC Championship game that resulted in a stunning Seahawks victory against the Packers. PNSN seismologists used seismic sensors at Cenutriy Link to monitor the game.

PNSN released a Packers vs. Seahawks game analysis.

This blogger was out of town in the wild mountains of eastern British Columbia during the game. However, he was able to find a bar with WiFi and TV showing the game and thus was able to "study" all the shaking going on. One thing discovered was that Canadian TV seems to have only about a 5 second delay while US TV has about a 10 second delay. Go figure. Also, the "Quick Shake" application worked like a charm even way out here in moose-land. There were no glitches.  It was designed to handle both old style browsers (using the "socket.io" library) and modern browsers (using the "ws" library) which 94% of our users have. The PNSN web site got lots of action but less than half has many hits as for the last game, probably because the novelty has worn off for many.  In both cases 2/3 of the hits were from new users so the word was still spreading.

However, more importantly we now have the proverbial nail in the coffin as proof for the source of the seismic signals we have been calling "Dance Quakes." Not only that but the "Dance Quake" following the go-ahead touchdown and 2-point conversion seems to be the biggest seismic signal yet seen associated with a Seahawks game. Those of us watching on TV directly saw the source of the shaking. For some reason the TV broadcast did not break away for a commercial as is typical after touchdowns.  Instead it showed several different scenes of the crowd. It was very obvious that large number of fans were jumping up and down in unison at a rate of about 2 jumps per second. Our staff in the press box said that the whole place was shaking so much they thought it might be a real earthquake.

This playoff season, the experiment started when scientists with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network installed three instruments in the stadium -- two in the stands and one by the playing field.

This year's experiment features faster connectivity and readings.A new tool called "QuickShake" displays vibrations within three seconds, which is five to 10 times faster than the tool used with the sensors last year, the scientists said.

If a big play prompts a fan quake,viewers monitoring the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network's webpage will see the activity before they see it on television, which has about a 10¬second delay during broadcast.

Want to talk about the news of the day? Watch free streaming video on the KIRO 7 mobile app and iPad app, and join us here on Facebook.

KIRO