Ringing Rocks

In Northern Pennsylvania, there is a state park that houses one of the most interesting, and certainly most unusual, geologic formations to be found in the United States. This is Ringing Rock,jow      ik ben lola

State Park, one of only a handful of places on our great planet where true, honest, ringing rocks can be found.

Here, anyone can walk up to the stones (there is a whole field full of them) and play the rocks like a xylophone. When struck, the rocks release a tone as they resonate against each other, a tone that is both audible and pleasant to the human ear.

Ringing Rocks are also known as Sonorous rocks and Lithophonic rocks. Some have even used these types of rocks to create new musical instruments, which are known as Lithophones.

Some people have suggested that, due to the supernatural or paranormal nature of these rocks, electronic equipment tends to fail in aircraft as it flies over the park. This is believed to be caused by an erratic magnetic field that moves across the rock formation, but very few tests, and even fewer unbiased tests, have shown this theory to hold any truth whatsoever.

Others claim that no life can be supported in the field due to unnatural forces, but the facts there are that the field is, indeed, a rock garden. Not much vegetation can survive on a diet of rocks.

One interesting fact that does hold true is the average temperature of the stones. Depending on the angle of the sun (and how much thermal energy the rocks had been able to absorb), temperatures range from 80 degrees Fahrenheit to over 104. This could be because of the high iron content of the stones, but more than that has yet to be proven.

One theory says that the stones have this strange feature because of the material they are made of. However, that material is diabase, which is the same material that covers most of the planet's surface. That fact alone makes this argument less than complete.

Another theory is that instead of forming because of massive compacting pressure, as many rocks in our planet did, these rocks were somehow formed because of a massive releaseof pressure. This adds to the elasticity of the stone and can cause the musical quality.