A Singing Mars?

The Dirge of a Dead World?

www.schweich.com...

Sand Mountain Nevada is one of about 27 locations on earth where the earth will literally speak to you. I can no longer vouch for Sand Mountain today, as ATVs have possibly ruined this phenomena. But it used to be that if you were to stand upon the mountain it would sing, every so often (about 4 minutes apart) you'd hear a high pitched: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee; followed by a low deep rhythmic: boom. And at other times you might think you were hearing a squadron of propeller planes passing over.

Reading more on what is thought to cause these singing sands: www.schweich.com... I got to thinking of the possibilities this occurs on Mars.

Since aridity is thought to be a necessary factor, Mars seems a likely candidate, however if any water is truly necessary there goes the idea. As far as I read, the sand simply must be dry, not that it must be very dry but within a small percentile of moisture.

If Mars were to have singing sands, then it would truly be the most remarkable planet in the solar system, for nothing is as melodic as a Singing Dune. It truly surpasses anything a human can create with such crude instruments as the violin or the piano or guitar or even percusions.

And unlike Earth, where aridity is never very prevelant, and where dunes mostly are too mobile to become singing or booming dunes, Mars has relatively little motion in its dunes thus making entire fields possible candidates for singers.

Singing Ergs.

The groaning and haunting dirge of a dead world.

It would be interesting to send some Geologists to the great Ergs of Mars to see whether or not there is any acoustic characteristics and help shed light on this phenomenon of nature.

[edit on 9-8-2004 by FreeMason]