The song of the dunes is the name given to the noise emitted by some Dune S in the Désert S when the grains of Sable which compose them enter in resonance. These dunes are named dunes mugissantes or dunes musicantes .

Marco Polo mentions in her writings the phenomenon, worrying for some, marvellous for others: " sands which sing sometimes fill the air with the sounds with all kinds of musical instruments, and also the noise of the drums and the shock of the weapons ".

About thirty singing dunes were listed in the world, mainly in China and America but also in the the Sahara, all the dunes not being prone to similar phenomenon.

The song of the dunes was studied and recently explained partly. The sound is emitted when a Avalanche (natural or started artificially while going on the dune) starts in the most sloping face of the dune (called of this fact face of avalanche ).

One of the theories trying to describe in a way more complete the phenomenon, in particular while trying to identify the mechanism at the origin of the sound, precise that the sound is emitted because of the periodic overlapping of the various layers of grains of sand, which leads to fundamental and clearly definite Harmonique S. The fundamental Fréquence varies between 60 and 105 Hz according to the size of the grains. The sound power seems to be about 110 dB on the surface of the dune. Other theories explain the generation of the sound by a standard model " guide onde" using the various layers of sand formed by avalanche successive, thus explaining why the frequency is relatively well defined using the modes of the guide of wave.

A last theory finally stipulates that the sound is generated by accordement between the frequency of jumps of the grains of sand at the time of the avalance, and the solid frequency of vibration generated in the layers internal of the dune.

Refer

• Explanation, Video and Audio

Video
• of singing dunes
• Singing and Booming Sand Dunes off California and Nevada
• The Bibliography off Aeolian Research
• scientific Articles in free access
• B. Andreotti " The Song off Dunes ace has Wave-Particle Mode Locking." Phys. rev. Lett. 93,238001 (2004)
• S. Douady and Al " Song off the Dunes ace has Instrument." Coil-Synchronized; Phys. rev. Lett. 97,018002 (2006)
• L. Bonneau, B. Andreotti and E. Clement " Surface elastic waves in granular media under gravity and to their relation to booming avalanches." Phys. rev. E 75,016602 (2006)
• N.M. Vriend and Al " Solving the mystery off booming sand dunes [[Geophysical Research Letters] 34,2007GL030276 (2007)
• B. Andreotti, L. Bonneau and E. Clement " How one “Solving the mystery off booming sand dunes”. " Cond-chechmate 0710.1815 (2007).
• Songs of the dunes in China.