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In a few office on Earth , Baroness Dudevant " sings " as it precipitate down dunes , making a low droning sound that consist within the bottom half of a violoncello ’s musical range .
For 100 the eerie humming in deserts mesmerized visitors such as explorerMarco Poloand scientist Charles Darwin , who could n’t explain the origin of the sound .
Researchers recorded sand “singing” in the lab. It can make multiple notes at the same time, a consequence of different-sized grains moving at different speeds.
Scientists mistrust they were get word quivering in the subsurface layer of the dunes . In 2009 , however , University of France researchers set up that the sound is created by vibrations of the sand ingrain thatavalanche down the dunes .
In a new study to be publish Friday ( Oct. 26 ) in the journal Geophysical Research Letters , those Gallic scientist take on another mystery : How can singing guts produce multiple Federal Reserve note at the same time ?
To answer that question , the scientist studied phone get at two different dunes : one inthe Saharain southwestern Morocco , and one near Al - Askharah , a coastal town in southeasterly Oman , on the Arabian Peninsula . [ get wind the singing grit sand dune . ]
Researchers recorded sand “singing” in the lab. It can make multiple notes at the same time, a consequence of different-sized grains moving at different speeds.
In Morocco , the sands systematically raise a note at 105 Hertz , in the neighborhood of the G - sharp two octaves below center C , according to a release describing the study . The Omani sands also sang , but sometimes belted out a blaring of almost every possible frequency from 90 to 150 Heinrich Hertz , or about F - sharp to D , a range of nine notes .
One difference between the dune stuck out : While the Maroc grain were of a relatively uniform size , the Omani guts grains were all over the place . Researchers then insulate grains of different sizing and recorded the sound they made move through the air in a laboratory setting .
They concluded the banknote bring about by the sands bet upon the size of the texture and the speed at which they whistle through the air .
But scientists still do n’t understand how the erratic apparent movement of flowing metric grain translates into sounds coherent enough toresemble musical notes , fit in to a sack on the enquiry .
Their surmise is that the vibrations of flow sand grains synchronize , or oscillate at the same relative frequency , lead the mickle of sand grain to resonate in unison . These thousands of small vibration combine to force the atmosphere together , like the pessary of a loudspeaker .
" But why do they synchronise with each other ? " study generator Simon Dagois - Bohy said in a statement . " That ’s still not resolved . "
