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May 15, 2007
Exploring the Acoustic Properties of Rocks
Elastic waves propagating through rocks have a number of important uses—among other things they are used to identify oil reserves, pinpoint the location of nuclear tests, and provide increasingly detailed images of Earth's deep interior. The waves generated by earthquakes typically have frequencies of ~0.01-10 Hz and are detected by sensitive seismometers across the globe. Elastic vibrations at somewhat higher frequencies—generated, for example, when rocks are struck together—can be detected by the ear as sound. A quintet of creative students in the GEOL 110 course I taught last fall searched through our collections to find rocks that approximated musical pitches when struck, and composed a piece using these rocks as the only instruments. A few weeks ago I received a recording of the world premiere of the piece, performed on the final day of classes last December in room 329 of the A.W. Smith building.
I believe the credits run as follows (though I am probably mixing up some of the instruments):
Evan Fein (composer) on fossiliferous limestone
Ka Young An on quartzite
Rebekah Newman on granite
Ye-deun Park on slate
Jiyeon Yeo on augen gneiss
Recording engineer: Steven Janowiecki (on cell phone)
Posted by jav12 at May 15, 2007 03:26 AM
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