Mexico’s victory over Ecuador caused the Earth to shake. Was It A Random Earthquake?

The land is real it was shaken after two goals that allowed Mexico to defeat Ecuador in the round of 32 2026 World Cup. Mexico’s Digital Platform for Early Warning and Major Disaster Management (SCOOP) reported that the fans’ celebrations following the goals of Julián Quiñones and Raúl Jiménez caused a “significant signal” recorded by the Raspberry Shake seismograph located near the Mexico City Stadium.

Seismic warning system said on His televised reports say that “the outpouring of joy and great excitement sent tremors through the community.” A similar incident occurred when Mexico met Germany at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, as the Mexican Institute of Geological and Atmospheric Research reported, following Hirving Lozano’s winning goal. seismic signal about the beginning of the act was known, “maybe because of the big jump” by the fans.

The phenomenon may occur thousands of kilometers from where the match is being played: Geoscientists detected an earthquake in Bergen, Norway, where the earthquake occurred. the team has scored a goal in the scoring race last week.

The same thing happened in 2024, when Taylor Swift’s concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles produced long-term, low-frequency signals – with frequency peaks between 1 and 10 Hz – detected by seismic monitoring sensors.

For several years now, the term “artificial earthquake” has been used to refer to these types of vibrations that are recorded by seismological systems during sporting events or large systems. However, various experts believe that this term is not the right way to describe this type of phenomenon.

First, it should be clear that artificial earthquakes exist and have been studied for many years. Research and the Department of Geosciences at Durham University say they are “human-induced earthquakes,” which are caused by activities that can change the ground’s structure, such as building high-rise buildings, extracting groundwater, digging canals, oil recovery, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), or underground gas storage.

Under this definition, the shock that has been identified by SASSLA’s actions following the goals of the Mexican team cannot be considered an “artificial earthquake.” Experts explain that, in order for the movement of the earth to be classified as an earthquake, it must be related to geological events. The fact that a seismograph records a disturbance does not mean that it can be classified as an earthquake.

Arturo Iglesias, researcher at the Institute of Geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, he explained a few years ago that, although human activities create movements that can be recorded by seismographs, this does not mean that they are real geological events that can be measured using seismic magnitudes or cause ground changes.

Iglesias added that seismic monitoring systems can detect small movements in the ground, whether natural or human-caused. He said that their calculations could be affected by factors such as the location of the stations, the shape of the terrain, or the strength of other events occurring on the surface.

“Even if a person jumps near the sensor, it is detected, but it is not an earthquake. An earthquake caused by the spread of fans is a joke,” Iglesias emphasizes.

However, the strange vibrations created by the simultaneous movement of thousands of people – as happened when the Mexican national team achieved its goals on Tuesday – have become an important area of ​​research.

Experts confirm that a better understanding of these indicators will help create more accurate strategies analyzing seismic events and make it easier to distinguish between different types of vibrations recorded by instruments. In addition, this information can encourage future applications, such as seismic interferometry – a method that uses vibrations produced by everyday sources to study the structure of the ground without the need for a controlled explosion or waiting for an earthquake to occur.