The Singing Iceberg

Scientists from Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have found a "singing" iceberg, as reported in the November 25th issue of Science. The singing iceberg was discovered accidently, while the researchers were monitoring earth movements in Antartica. The sound waves, which had a frequency of 0.5 Hertz, too low for the human ear to perceive, were picked up on the scientists' sophisticated recording equipment. But when the researchers played the sounds at a higher speed, they reported hearing sounds not unlike a swarm of bees or an orchestra warming up.

Naturally, I wanted to hear these mysterious ice voices for myself. Luckily, the researchers have made a sample of the sound available as a wav. file , so anyone can hear.

I didn't hear a swarm of bees or an orchestra warming up. To me, the sound is reminiscent of recordings I have heard of great whales communicating from the ocean depths or the infrasounds (sounds below human hearing) that elephants use to communicate with each other over long distances.

The iceberg researchers theorize that the sounds were produced after the iceberg became caught on the seabed. As water was forced through the cracks and crevasses, the ice mass began to virbrate, producing the singing sound.

Naturally, the news networks picked up on this nifty item, as they knew readers would be intrigued. And I suspect that most people, after they read the explanation of the sounds, won't think too much more about it. After all, the "real" cause of the singing iceberg has been explained. Case closed.

But perhaps we should be asking ourselves what the iceberg is trying to tell us.

Now before you dismiss this idea as utter nonsense, take into consideration that indigenous peoples of all lands "listened" (and still listen) to the voice of nature every day of their lives. These first peoples, like the Native Americans and ancient Hawaiians, managed to live on the land for generation after generation, without polluting and destroying their homelands. A better track record than we moderns have, I should say!

Ice seems to be communicating with us in other ways as well. Just this week, analysis of ice taken from a deep Antartic core that extends back 740,000 years or more, gave alarming new weight to the evidence that human activity, and not natural cycles, is the cause of the current global warming trend.

To listen to the voice of Nature is to acknowledge Nature as somehow being responsive, rather than just a collection of passive objects over which we can exert our human will.
So what is necessary for us to be able to hear again?

Although they were writing about trees in their 1994 Crosscurrents article, Brian Walsh, a theologian; Marianne Karsh, a forester; and Nik Ansell, a phiosopher; could well have been speaking about any element of our natural world when they said:

"Both the very nature of trees qua trees and the present ecological crisis require us to relate to trees in a way which goes beyond economic or even ecological self-interest. We need to go beyond notions of dutiful stewardship of resources to a relationship of coresponsiveness, intimacy, communion, mutuality, fellowship, and love with the trees themselves. A tree is not "merely an object in our world of experience but also a subject of relations in its own right. It is acted upon and it acts."

Let us open our ears so we can hear the very voice of the Earth as she sings to us...while she still has breath to speak.

Posted by Ellen Britt on November 26, 2005 at 02:46 PM in
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First Posted: Friday, November 25, 2005 . 10:26am -->

Reuters
The researchers were recording seismic signals to measure earthquakes and tectonic movements on Antarctica's South Atlantic coast when they picked up the unprecedentedly clear acoustic signals.
Scientist Vera Schlindwein says the signals led them to a 50 kilometre by 20 kilometre iceberg that had collided with an underwater peninsula and was slowly scraping around it.
"Once the iceberg stuck fast on the seabed, it was like a rock in a river," she said.
"The water pushes through its crevasses and tunnels at high pressure and the iceberg starts singing.
"The tune even goes up and down, just like a real song."
- Reuters
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A complex of tubes and crevices characterizes the internal structure of many icebergs. Photo credit: Alfred-Wegener-Institut.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/EleInfrasound.html See this site also, look at the bottom of the page! Cool.