Ringing rocks

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A child strikes a rock with a hammer at Ringing Rocks Park, Pennsylvania, to generate a distinctive bell sound.

Ringing Rocks are rocks that have the curious property of resonating like a bell when struck, such as the Musical Stones of Skiddaw in the English Lake District as well as the stones in Ringing Rocks Park, near Bridgeton, Bucks County, Pennsylvania USA and the Bell Rock Range of Western Australia. Ringing rocks are also known as sonorous rocks or lithophonic rocks, as used in idiophonic musical instruments called lithophones.

[edit] Ringing Rocks Park

According to the Unmuseum, "In 1965 a geologist named Richard Faas from Lafayette College in nearby Easton, Pennsylvania, took a few of the rocks back to his lab for testing. He found that when the rocks were struck they created a series of tones at frequencies lower than the human ear can hear. Only because the tones interact with each other is a sound high pitched enough to be audible generated. Though Faas's experiments with the rocks explained the nature of the tones he was unable to figure out the specific physical mechanism in the rock that made them, though scientists suspect it has something to do with stress within the rocks."[1]

[edit] Bell Rock Range

The Bell Rock Range is a large ultramafic gabbro-peridotite intrusion in the Musgrave Block of Western Australia, near Warburton. It is composed of massive, heavily indurated intrusive rocks and forms a prominent 15 kilometre long range of mountains and hills. The intrusion is called the Bell Rock Range because, when struck, the rocks ring like a bell.

[edit] See also

• Basalt
• Diabase
• Granite

[edit] Bibliography

• James Pontolillo and John Pontolillo, 1993, Ringing Rocks Sites in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, INFO Journal #68. [Comprehensive review of all known ringing rock sites in PA and NJ.]
• Andrew E. Stroud, 2008, "Ringing Rock Boulder Fields in SE Pennsylvania", Phactum October 2008 (Brief description of three public sites and a discussion on the geology of the boulder fields.)

[edit] External references

• Ringing rocks is at coordinates 40°34′N 75°08′W / 40.57°N 75.13°W / 40.57; -75.13 (Ringing rocks)Coordinates: 40°34′N 75°08′W / 40.57°N 75.13°W / 40.57; -75.13 (Ringing rocks)
• Unexplained Earth: Ringing Rocks of Pennsylvania
• Ringing Rocks, Lower Pottsgrove Township, PA
• Ringing Rocks of Montana

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