The World's Biggest Natural Tuning Fork Was Just Analyzed in Moab
Castleton Tower is a striking part of the landscape, jutting out of a hill as a solitary stone watcher, and is also one of the area's premiere climbing spots. The 400 foot tall rock formation, even if you put your ear to it, will not give you a satisfying sound. To detect and discover how the rock tower truly sounds, they need special equipment to record and register the frequencies.
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1
Solitary Watcher is Not so Solitary
Though appearing to be a solitary standing block, Castleton Tower vibrates, and those are affected by things as big as earthquakes, and as small as a gust of wind. Natural sound isn't alone here either. The sounds of cities, trains, cars, and even aviation are also registered within this rock.
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Why Do The Research In the First Place?
Major collapses of rock features, such as the collapse of one of the most prominent arches in Arches state park in 2008, led to this type of research being done. Scientists are trying to discern the precursors to rockfall in these formations, as well as finding a non-invasive way to listen for and detect warning signs of potential instability.
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The Climbers and the Task
Jeffrey G. Moore headed up the studies on vibration, and one of the major tasks on any measurement was placing the measurement devices properly. For a 400 foot tower like Castleton, this was no task for the average scientist.
That's where Kathryn Vollinger and Natan Richman came in. Both very seasoned climbers, and both were looking for a way to stay sharp in the off-season, so the match was made in heaven. It took a few weeks of training to get the climbers familiar and comfortable with the equipment, as well as the weight of it while climbing.
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Climbers Matched in More Ways Than One
These two weren't just climbing partners. Though they started out that way, but two years prior to the Moab climb, they tied the knot in the most extreme sports way possible, by having a "rehearsal climb" before the ceremony, followed by the actual climb they did together, where a tent and their closest friends were waiting at the top, so they could change clothes, and have their marriage ceremony there.
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The Route Up
Castleton Tower is one of the most famous in the world, and the main climbing route up the tower is one of the 50 most iconic climbing routes in North America. Though not technically difficult compared to many other climbs, it is one of the first towers that climbers go to when getting into that type of climbing.
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Why Hasn't Anyone Done This Yet?
The scientists who took part in the project were not strangers to measuring vibrations of various natural and man-made rock structures, trying to determine the affect that man-made noise has on the natural environment. But the structures they checked were small structures like bridges and arches. In order to measure the vibration of rock formations, the device (a seismometer). A 400-foot free-standing rock pinnacle was a daunting task
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Amazing Breakthrough
The instruments were placed on top, and give the first 3D model of a structure of such a size and height, as well as readings on its oscillations and frequencies of vibration. Interestingly though, the tower stands in a "range of sensitivity", a range of rock features that jointly shield themselves from the effects of man-made vibrations and distant earthquakes.
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Results
Once the climbers had taken measurements and brought the equipment down, the results confirmed the researchers original hypothesis, that the slab doesn't vibrate at different frequencies at different parts of the formation, instead it acts as "one slab of intact rock, connected from the bottom."
It vibrates at a very low frequency, most likely due to its gargantuan size. Smaller formations had been found to resonate at much higher frequencies, which makes them much more susceptible to transference of energy, and due to this, much more likely to accumulate damage to their integrity and structure over time.
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Tower Oscillation
This is a representation, though exaggerated, of the movement of the Tower as the vibrations affect it. Those these movements are invisible to the naked eye, this offers a representation of the movement of the rock.
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The Human Effect
The whole premise of the study was that human's have a significant effect and the noise we generate has a damaging effect on the integrity of the natural world, especially those features that are susceptible to vibration. They are also looking at how these forces affect erosion in the area, not just in the immediate time-frame, but also looking for changes over various periods of time.
The team plans on tackling many more similar rock features, so all we can wonder is, who will be the next climbers to take on the task.
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