

This remarkable recording of ice-sheets cracking on a frozen lake sounds just like a Star Wars blaster fight. Andreas Bick, a Berlin sound designer/composer, made the recording and explains, on his Silent Listening blog: "In my experience, thin ice is especially interesting for acoustic phenomena; it is more elastic and sounds are propagated better across the surface. Snowfall, on the other hand, has a muffling effect and the sound can only travel to a limited extent. The ice sheet acts as a huge membrane across which the cracking and popping sounds spread. Underwater microphones proved especially well-suited for these recordings: in a small hole drilled close beneath the surface of the water, the sounds emitted by the body of ice carry particularly well."



Dispersion of Sound Waves in Ice Sheets

(via Kottke)

(Image: Frozen Lake, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from m.prinke's photostream)