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Topic: Singing Sand Dunes

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	Singing Sand Dunes: The Mystery of Desert Music \| LiveScience
		Wind forces sand to accumulate at the top of the dune until the angle of the slope reaches a tipping point of about 35 degrees.
		Although sand avalanches were known to be the cause of the singing, the exact mechanism was still unclear.
		By measuring vibrations in the sand and air, Andreotti was able to detect surface waves on the sand that emanated from the avalanche at a relatively slow speed of about 130 feet per second (40 meters per second).
	www.livescience.com /environment/050111_singing_dunes.html (749 words)

	Singing and Booming Sand Dunes - A
		Sand at the Kelso Dunes traveled 35 miles (56 km) from the delta area of the Mojave River where it emptied into the Pleistocene lake basin now occupied by Soda Dry Lake east of Afton Canyon, the terminus of the Mojave River.
		Dunes and sand fields which did not emit the booming sounds characteristic of other well-developed terminal dunes have been visited by the authors and by Haff (1979).
		The dunes in Long Valley are a very localized phenomenon, generated by a blow-out of playa deposits derived from the carbonate bedrock which bounds the valley on both east and west.
	www.schweich.com /sbdA.html (3115 words)

	Singing Sand Dunes: The Mystery Of Desert Music
		The sand must be sufficiently dry for the singing to occur.
		Although sand avalanches were known to be the cause of the singing, the exact mechanism was still unclear.
		By measuring vibrations in the sand and air, Andreotti was able to detect surface waves on the sand that emanated from the avalanche at a relatively slow speed of about 130 feet per second (40 meters per second).
	rense.com /general61/desde.htm (546 words)

	Singing to the tune of sand
		It is known that these sounds are produced by sand dunes when they avalanche, but the exact mechanism behind the phenomenon has remained a mystery.
		Singing dunes are one of the most puzzling and impressive natural phenomena.
		Using sand shipped from the Ghord Lahmar region in Morocco to their lab, Douady and colleagues found they could produce notes from the sand simply by pushing the sand grains together by hand or using a metal blade.
	www.iop.org /News/news_6581.html (378 words)

	marchartists
		He found that the vibrations in the sand behaved like slow-moving elastic sound waves that were localized at the surface of the dune and had an amplitude that was about a quarter of the diameter of an individual grain of sand.
		Dunes are mounds of sand produced by the action of the wind.
		Singing dunes, he thought, were the result of air being pushed in and out between the synchronized grains.
	www.thehandstand.org /archive/november-december2006/articles/sand.htm (3254 words)

	Sand Dunes - Phenomena of the Wind! (DesertUSA)
		Although most dunes are composed of quartz and feldspar grains, the brilliant snow-white dunes of White Sands, New Mexico are composed of gypsum and the spectacular fl sand beaches of tropical South Pacific islands are made of fine volcanic particles.
		Gleaming white sands of tropical coral beaches and atolls are composed of a glistening, microscopic assortment of reef animals and algae, including wave-worn fragments of brightly-colored corals, minute one-celled foraminiferans, fragments of sea shells and star-shaped sponge spicules.
		Starting with the wind and tumbling particles of sand and culminating in picturesque drifts of rippled sand with an entire, dynamic, living community of plants and animals; this is one of nature's most remarkable cycles, and it is truly a phenomenon of wind.
	www.desertusa.com /magjan98/dunes/jan_dune1.html (1942 words)

	Dune tunes...the greatest hits - earth - 17 September 2005 - New Scientist
		Sand dunes in certain parts of the world are notorious for the noises they make as sand avalanches down their sides.
		The singing grains were round with a smooth coating of silicon, iron and manganese, which probably formed on the sand when the dunes once lay beneath an ancient ocean.
		He has successfully predicted the notes emitted by dunes in Morocco, Chile and the US simply by measuring the size of the grains they contain (www.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0412047v1).
	www.newscientist.com /article.ns?id=dn8014 (597 words)

	NASA - Exploration Systems - City-swallowing Sand Dunes
		Sand fences, like snow fences, can also help, although in many cases their design is little more than guesswork.
		"Moving sand dunes are an example of granular flow--a poorly understood branch of physics," explains James Jenkins, a professor of theoretical mechanics at Cornell University.
		Sand dunes fascinate Jenkins (along with his collaborators in Gainesville, Florida, and Rennes, France) because they manifest three aspects of granular flow.
	exploration.nasa.gov /articles/06dec_dunes_lite.html (1203 words)

	Dune tunes...the greatest hits - earth - 17 September 2005 - New Scientist Environment
		Sand dunes in certain parts of the world are notorious for the noises they make as sand avalanches down their sides.
		But after a month of singing, the sands seemed to lose their voice.
		The singing grains were round with a smooth coating of silicon, iron and manganese, which probably formed on the sand when the dunes once lay beneath an ancient ocean.
	environment.newscientist.com /article/dn8014.html (711 words)

	The troubled song of the sand dunes (November 2006) - Physics World - PhysicsWeb
		In particular, singing dunes offer the chance to uncover a completely new way of generating sound that is different to the mechanism on which most musical instruments are based.
		Dunes are mounds of sand produced by the action of the wind.
		Singing dunes, he thought, were the result of air being pushed in and out between the synchronized grains.
	physicsweb.org /articles/world/19/11/4 (2480 words)

	Sam Sand Dunes,Sam Sand Dunes Jaisalmer,Sand Dunes In Jaisalmer,Sand Dunes In Jaisalmer Rajasthan
		Wrinkled patterns on undulating stretches of ochre sands meet the blue skies in the horizon on the enthralling Sam Sand dunes.
		Located at a distance of 42 kilometers from the main Jaisalmer city on the outskirts of the Sam village, the Sam Sand dunes are a must visit during your Jaisalmer tours.
		Once in a year the sleepy villages located close to the Sam Sand dunes spring to life with unexpected gaiety and enthusiasm during the famous Jaisalmer Desert festival.
	www.indianhorizons.net /best-of-india/jaisalmer/tourist-attractions/sam-sand-dunes.html (284 words)

	Secret of the Booming Dunes (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Likewise, people playing in sand dunes have found that pushing sand in different ways gives various notes: Scooting on your rump down a dune, pushing the sand downhill with your feet, triggers a low booming noise (link to movie) around 50 to 300 hertz (the low end of a piano scale).
		Previous studies indicated that in natural avalanches on singing dunes, the sand grains' size is linked to the frequency of sound it puts out: To make the booming sound, the grains have to be similarly sized, well-rounded—but not overly polished—dry and free of dust.
		While Douady and colleagues contend it is a thin layer of the sliding sand, Andreotti sticks by his previous work, which suggests the collisions in the avalanche set a much larger area of the dune vibrating, and this greater section emits the sound.
	masonmade.com /singing_dunes.html (625 words)

	Rhode Island Beach Sand Composition:
		Unfortunately, the sands react sensitively to air and sea water pollution, and may actually act as a sensor for the presence of pollution.
		Therefore, the quality of the sound producing property of singing sand on the beach is a sign that shows purity of sea water.
		One ton of sand (whose millions of grains have been sorted to make sure each one is about 0.13 millimeters), flows from the upper bulb to the lower bulb.
	www.ed.uri.edu /homepage/projects/ocean/Sand4.htm (1231 words)

	Sand Dunes
		Barking Sands beach, a stretch of gleaming white sand dunes on the arid west coast of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.
		The small seeds may move downward through the sand or may be buried by continually shifting sand dunes which are subsequently colonized by new host vegetation.
		Sand wasps differ from spider wasps, mud daubers and many other digging wasps that provide their larvae with a single cache of food that must last throughout the larva's development.
	waynesword.palomar.edu /ww0704.htm (4278 words)

	W. P. Carey MBA - Executive Program - Arizona State University: Singing sand dunes
		It is well-known that sand dunes make a noise but the dynamics that create this sound had so far been unexplained.
		"Singing dunes are one of the most puzzling and impressive natural phenomena I have ever encountered," says Andreotti.
		You can listen to the sound of the dunes as picked up by the microphone in the photo are the right.
	www.wpcareymbaexecs.com /main/2004/12/singing_sand_du.html (240 words)

	City-swallowing Sand Dunes
		NASA-supported researchers are studying the complex physics of menacing sand dunes.
		: "Singing sand dunes" of the Gobi Desert.
		The third is avalanches of sand down the steep lee side of a dune.
	science.nasa.gov /headlines/y2002/06dec_dunes.htm (1204 words)

	GORP - Death Valley National Park, California - Sand Dunes
		For dunes to exist there must be a source of sand, prevailing winds to move the sand, and a place for the sand to collect.
		The dunes cover an area only 3 miles long and 1 mile wide, yet they are the tallest sand dunes in California, possibly the tallest in all of North America.
		When the sand avalanches down the steepest face of the highest dune, a sound like a bass note of a pipe organ or the distant drone of an airplane can be heard emanating from the sand.
	gorp.away.com /gorp/resource/us_national_park/ca/nat2_dv.htm (969 words)

	Singing sand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Singing sand or barking sand is sand that emits sounds of either high or low frequency under pressure.
		The sound emission is usually triggered by wind passing over dunes or by walking on the sand.
		The sand grains have to be round and between 0.1 and 0.5 mm in diameter
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Singing_sand (145 words)

	Death Valley
		As he put it when I apologized, "Hey, I understand the need to fuck." He was more wise in the ways of the sand dune than I, and he explained how the sand is at it's "maximum angle of repose", meaning it's stacked as steep as it can be without toppling over.
		As Dodger said, the dune was singing a lot this year.
		We wallowed in the sand for a good hour or two, but you can only make so many sand angels before it's time to move on, so we mounted our communal snowboard and made our merry way.
	www.wrybread.com /deathvalley/part3.shtml (490 words)

	Come, listen to the Singing Sand!
		The Singing Sand in Erdos is the largest of its kind in China and rare in the world.
		The Singing Sand is attracting more and more tourists as it becomes a popular place for outdoor scenes for a number of Chinese and foreign movies.
		The Singing Sand is 110 metres high, 400 meters wide with an incline of 45 degrees.
	www.chinadaily.com.cn /bizchina/2006-08/07/content_658549.htm (306 words)

	Photos of Sand Dunes in California (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The first time I encountered sand dunes was on a family camping trip to Death Valley in 1991.
		Once I reached the top of the highest dune, and my sister was on a nearby dune, I noticed that on a facing dune someone had drawn a giant metal detector in the sand.
		Also, there is a counter-clockwise current in Mono Lake, and the sand deposited on this shore is then available to be blown into the dunes.
	www.ecomafia.com /sand.html (318 words)

	Singing Dunes, Southern Kazakhstan: Travel Info
		Another unique wonder of nature is the Singing Dunes, 182-km northeast of Almaty, on the right bank of the Ili river.
		The scarcely perceptible movement of sand sliding down the slope causes the humming and vibration.
		The friction caused by the movement of dry grains of sand, combined with the dry air, electrifies them, causing the vibration.
	www.advantour.com /kazakhstan/southern/singing-dunes.htm (103 words)

	Ultima Thule: Where passions run deep (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		A quote from this article: the scientific battle over what causes sand dunes to sing has become so intense that the two physicists at the heart of the dispute can no longer bear to work in the same laboratory.
		It sounds like a fun question to tackle, but the scientific battle over what causes sand dunes to sing has become so intense that the two physicists at the heart of the dispute can no longer bear to work in the same laboratory.
		The full story (see "The troubled song of the sand dunes") dramatically illustrates how emotion and tension are central to science.
	aussiethule.blogspot.com /2006/11/where-passions-run-deep.html (579 words)

	Singing Sand Dunes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Singing Sand Dunes or Song of Dunes, also described as roaring, booming, squeaking, or musical sand, is the name given to a natural sound phenomenon of up to 115 decibels lasting as long as several minutes that occurs in about 35 desert locations around the world.
		The sound is similar to a loud, low-pitch, rumble, and it emanates from the crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans, without any direct wind involvement.
		Scientists announced in 2006 that they had discovered how this phenomenon works[1]: collisions between grains of sands cause the motions of the grains to become synchronized.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Singing_Sand_Dunes (191 words)

	SPACE.com -- Saharan Sand Dunes Found on Saturn's Moon Titan
		The pictures, captured by the Cassini spacecraft as it flew by Titan last October and released today, show sand dunes at Titan's equator much like those in the Sahara desert.
		The new images, revealed in the May 5 issue of the journal Science, are evidence that these dunes were built from winds that blow in one direction before switching to another and then back to the first direction and so on.
		The sand on Titan might have formed when liquid methane rained and eroded the ice bedrock.
	www.space.com /scienceastronomy/060504_sands_titan.html (630 words)

	Dreamtime
		My memory is not so good on the details but I believe this one particular dune or all of them produce a note in F or G. They explained how it works using a metaphor of how the vibrations on a stringed instrument resonate and produce sound.
		The dunes have to be a certain (tall) height; each grain of sand has to be the same size; underneath the top sand there has to be a foundation of packed very hard sand.
		A dune can soar to 1000 feet in size and may move across the face of the desert as it loses sand on one side and gains it on the other.
	www.loststudies.com /caves/the_caves_51.html (2765 words)

	Sand Dunes Resort
		The Imperial Sand Dunes is a dune field in southern California popular with off-road enthusiasts.
		The Singing Sand Dunes, also described as roaring, booming, squeaking, or musical, is the name given to a natural sound phenomenon that occurs in about 35 deserts around the world.
		Although the phenomenon has not been fully understood, scientists believe that it is a resonance from the sliding of similarly-sized grains of sand during avalanches, reverberating over a more solid batch of sand.
	www.artistbooking.com /trips/181/sand-dunes-resort.html (195 words)

	bookofjoe: The Sound of Sand Singing
		But if that were true, dunes of different sizes and shapes should produce a cacophony of notes instead of one characteristic tone.
		The scientists shipped sand from a Moroccan desert to a Paris laboratory and reproduced the singing by pushing the sand around with a metal blade.
		Here is a link to a page on his website replete with recordings of singing sand from all over the world.
	www.bookofjoe.com /2006/07/the_sound_of_sa.html (516 words)

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