Jubilant fans of newly-crowned English football champions Leicester City sparked a record earth tremor with their celebrations, academics revealed on Monday.
The noisy eruptions of excited fans at the King Power Stadium caused the biggest earth tremors ever recorded in Leicester, a team from the city’s university revealed.
Seismometers close to the stadium on Saturday monitored activity when Leicester played its last home game of the season against Everton in a 3-1 win on Saturday, followed by the presentation of the league championship trophy.
The equipment was installed by geology students at a local school 500 metres from the King Power Stadium, assisted by the British Geological Survey (BGS) using monitors that detects earthquakes anywhere in the world.
The seismometers recorded minor earth tremors at the moment Leicester heroes Jamie Vardy and Andy King scored goals.
Vardy’s goals recorded quakes with a magnitude 0.4 on the scale, earning a new word in the geology dictionary: “Vardyquakes”.
University researcher Richard Hoyle commented: “The fans must have been truly energised for their team to end the league on a high and we can see this with the seismic waves they produced.”
“The signals we measured at Saturday’s game were the biggest we have seen coming from the King Power Stadium since we started monitoring the matches.”
“If we collate all of the data from previous matches, out of all the Leicester goal scorers, Vardy is responsible for generating the most seismic activity since the project started — so perhaps there really is such a phenomenon as the Vardyquake.”
Saturday’s “Vardyquake” was bigger than the previous highest magnitude tremor of 0.3 recorded when a last minute winning goal was scored by Leicester’s Leonardo Ulloa in another league match in February.
BGS seismologist Paul Denton said: “It says something about the nature of football, it’s so tense and then we get four or five seconds of unexpected magic.”
A spokesman for the University of Leicester said: “Geology students have been monitoring seismic signals detected by earthquake monitoring equipment installed near the King Power Stadium.”
“The seismic data demonstrates how Leicester City Football Club is literally making the earth move.”
“The earthquake monitoring equipment was installed at Hazel Community Primary School which is located 500 meters from the King Power Stadium, enabling the team to detect, record and calculate the magnitudes of seismic signals coming from earthquakes around the world,” he added.
“The students discovered that the equipment was actually measuring small earthquakes produced by the sudden energy released by the elated Leicester fans when their team scored goals at home matches.”
Meanwhile, people of Leicester will have their chance to salute the team when they tour the city in an open-topped bus on May 16.
