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'Singing sand' or 'barking sand' is sand that produces 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 sound is generated by shear stress.
Certain conditions have to come together to create singing sand:
# The sand grains have to be round and between 0.1 and 0.5 mm in diameter
# The sand has to contain silica
# The sand needs to be a certain humidity
The most common frequency emitted seems to be close to 450 Hz.
Other sounds that can be emitted by sand have been described as "roaring" or "booming".
Examples of singing sand dunes include California's Kelso Dunes and Eureka Dunes, sugar sand beaches and Warren Dunes in southwestern Michigan, Sand Mountain in Nevada, the Booming Dunes in the Namib Desert, Africa, and Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.

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See also

External links

References

See also

★ Bouncing stones

External links

★ Booming sand

References

★ Nori, Franco; Sholtz, Paul; & Bretz, Michael (September 1997). "Booming sand", ''Scientific American'', '277'(3), 84.

★ Sholtz, Paul; Bretz, Michael; & Nori, Franco (October 1997). "Sound-producing sand avalanches", ''Contemporary Physics'', '38'(5), 329-342.