Indiana's Singing Sand Dunes Is A Unique Place To Visit
By Tori Jane|Published July 06, 2022
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Tori Jane
Author
Tori Jane is a storm chaser, writer, photographer, and the village idiot - in that order. When she's not out and about dancing with the meanest storms on planet Earth for funsies she can be found wandering, shooting landscapes, writing, editing photos, and otherwise up to no good. Legend has it that she can also be occasionally spotted typing up short bios in the third person, but those rumors are unsubstantiated.
Indiana is proud to call itself home to at least some of Lake Michigan’s stunningly gorgeous shorelines. Though Lake Michigan has 1,638 total miles of pristine beaches and/or shoreline to account for, just 45 of those miles are in the Hoosier State, and guess what? Those 45 miles are special, not just because they’re “ours” (though that’s a part of the reason) but because sometimes, when conditions are just right, the sand dunes packed along the shoreline in Indiana do something amazing: they “sing”, emitting a strange noise one might not be able to recognize right away on the first visit, but once you hear it, you’ll never not hear it again.
Lake Michigan is not simply the site of some of the most beautiful beaches in Indiana – it’s also where you can go to listen to music made 100% by mama nature, and trust us: it’s strange and beautiful all at the same time. Come out to Lake Michigan and listen: these singing sand dunes in Indiana are a force of nature and a beautifully mysterious-sounding one at that:
So, what's the deal, then? What do we mean by singing sand?
Well, singing sands are a very conditional natural phenomena that occurs when everything - and we mean everything - is juuuust right. For example, each grain of sand needs to be from 0.1 millimeters to up to 0.5 millimeters in circumference and nearly perfectly rounded by years of erosion.
The sand at Indiana Dunes National Park is up to 90% mineral quartz and silica left behind long, long ago by retreating glaciers, which is another necessary factor in the dunes' abilities to sing.
The other 10% of the sand's composition is minerals and sediments like hornblende, garnet, magnetite, iron, and a number of feldspars as well; when the humidity content of the air is exactly where it ought to be and the wind blows the sand around just so, this unique combination of factors results in a truly unusual but absolutely captivating sound.
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It's the quartz, primarily, that makes the magic happen. As the sand grains rub past one another, they begin to resonate at a frequency audible to the human ear - what we interpret as the "singing" sound.
If you manage to reach the dunes during a time when there are fewer visitors (we recommend during the week, early in the morning, on a windy or breezy day), there will be less hullabaloo in the background, making it that much easier to experience the singing dunes in Indiana for yourself.
The sound is described as everything from an ethereal humming as the wind blows it around to a startling bark, particularly if you walk a certain way and be sure to kick the sand up as you go, much like one would kick-scoot their sneakers on the tile in gym class to make the floor squeak as a kid.
YouTube user Ron Seman demonstrates the kick-scoot method of walking to activate the sand's "song" in a very interesting video here:
We prefer to listen to the sands when the wind is blowing; it's just a little more magical, we think, when it's 100% nature playing the "music" and not influenced by our kicking the sand at all.
A couple of singing dunes in Indiana (and their connected beaches) include Miller Beach and Kemil Beach, as well as Mt. Baldy (which has quite a few unusual stories of its own OUTSIDE the singing sands).
Do you know of any amazing beaches in Indiana with sand that "sings"? Tell us about them in the comments - you might see your picks featured someday!
Can’t get enough of awesome Indiana? Same. Check out this amazing Lake Michigan road trip that ought to show you the best this amazing little corner of the world has to offer!
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