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No, Phillies fans at Citizens Bank Park did not trigger seismic activity
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Experts said the stadium is too far away from the nearest seismograph station to be able to register activity from it.
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The image of seismic activity included in the tweet was from a magnitude 5.1 earthquake recorded Oct. 25 in San Francisco.
Did a thunderous crowd at the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park erupt in a celebration that "literally registered" on a seismograph?
That’s what a viral tweet claimed on Nov. 1 after the home team hit five home runs during Game 3 of the World Series, which the Phillies won 7-0.
"Harper and Bohm home runs are literally registering on the Penn State University Brandywine seismograph station," the Nov. 1 tweet said, referring to home runs hit by the Phillies’ Alec Bohm and Bryce Harper. "The city is physically shaking."
An image included with the tweet shows what appears to be a graph of seismic activity. The tweet has been liked more than 10,000 times.
But as raucous as the celebrations might have been, they did not register on a seismograph.
Kyle Homman, the seismic network manager for the Pennsylvania State Seismic Network and a doctoral candidate in Penn State University’s Department of Geosciences, told PolitiFact in an email that there were no seismic activity spikes related to the game.
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"I did find a play-by-play (of the game) and looked more closely at the data around the home run times," Homman said. "Assuming those times are correct, I did not see any increase in the seismic data that would indicate shaking from the stadium being recorded."
The closest seismic station to the stadium is at the Penn State satellite campus of Brandywine, Homman said. That’s roughly 20 miles from Citizens Bank Park.
Another expert said that distance is too far to be able to register activity.
"No stadium, no matter how loud it is, is going to generate enough seismic waves that it’s going to transmit 20 miles," Laura Guertin, a Penn State earth sciences professor, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Furthermore, Tammie Souza, a meteorologist for Philadelphia's CBS television affiliate, tweeted that the original tweet’s image corresponded with a magnitude 5.1 earthquake recorded Oct. 25 in San Francisco.
We rate the claim that the crowd at a Philadelphia Phillies World Series game "literally registered" on a seismograph Pants on Fire!
Our Sources
Tweet, (archived) Nov. 1, 2022
PASEIS Seismic Network, accessed Nov. 3, 2022
Sporting News, "Astros vs. Phillies final score, results: Barrage of home runs gives Phillies dominant Game 3 win, World Series lead," Nov. 2, 2022
PASEIS Seismic Network, "Pennsylvania Seismic Stations," accessed Nov. 3, 2022
Associated Press, "Magnitude 5.1 quake strikes in San Francisco Bay Area," Oct. 25, 2022
The Philadelphia Inquirer, "No, the Phillies crowd was not loud enough to register on a Penn State earthquake detector," Nov. 2, 2022
The New York Times, "Phillies Fans Are Raucous, but They Didn’t Move a Seismograph," Nov. 2, 2022
Tweet, Nov. 2, 2022
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No, Phillies fans at Citizens Bank Park did not trigger seismic activity
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