Congratulations To Our Super Hard Trivia Question Winners

Congratulations, to both teams who were able to figure out the answer to our super hard trivia question.  They split the prize of $110 in cold hard cash.  The correct answer to our Super Hard Trivia question was “Booming Sands.”  Listen Here

Booming sands are a worldwide phenomenon with examples from North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East and Hawaii. The Hawaiian examples are interesting in that the sand composition is carbonate; most booming sands are composed dominantly of quartz sand. Most authors consider booming sands a feature of warm dry climates, however, I have heard booming dunes in two cold climate fields–the Killpecker Dunes in Wyoming and the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.

Dunes are known to make two very different musiclike sounds when sand is sheared (commonly by the avalanche process). These sounds fall broadly into either the “whistling sand” or “booming sand” category. A higher pitched sound in the 800 to 1,200 Hz or 500 to 2,500 Hz range is known to occur in dune sand and beach sand; most commonly in dry sand but occasionally in wet sand conditions. Sands making such sounds are known as whistling, singing, squeaking, or barking sands. The sound usually lasts for a very short time, less than a second.

Sands of the requisite size, and surface smoothness can be easily induced to “whistle” by poking a stick or pencil into the sand, sweeping the sand surface quickly with a hand or stepping on the sand. The sand does not have to be on a steep surface; in fact many beach sands “whistle.”

Squeaking or whistling sand is found where quartz sand is very well rounded and highly spherical. The frequency of the sound is related to the mean grain size and the amplitude is controlled by the surface texture of the grains. The loudest squeaking observed by researchers was produced in the middle of the day by hot dry sand in the tidal zone, although they observed that completely water-saturated sand could be induced to squeak as water was receding.

“Booming sands” are much more impressive in my opinion. One both hears them in a lower frequency band (50 to 264 Hz) than “whistling sand” and feels them–the ground trembles, the surface moves and ripples. Thus, booming sands have both acoustic and seismic components and the sound can last for much longer than do whistles or squeaks.  More…

I know that these last 11 weeks have been frustrating for some, but that is what made the question so hard.  Fortunately, for everyone we will have a brand new “Super Hard Question” and this time it will be in the form of a picture instead of a sound.  Good Luck to all of our players.