... and scooting down the dune, the unearthly roar echoing in the natural amphitheater." What a delightful introduction to one of Nature's light-hearted anomalies! Such booming dunes and roaring sands may be found in thirty-or-so localities all over the world, mostly in desert envi-ronments. Most of the booming dunes are composed of quartz sands, the main exception being the Barking Sands on Kauai, Hawaii, which are calcium carbonate. Despite over a century of investigation, no one knows exactly why some dunes boom. In fact, the sand grains of booming and silent dunes look pretty much alike. The addition of sand from a booming dune will not make a silent dune roar, but the additon of silent-dune sand to a booming dune will contaminate it ... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wagnerian Sands Of The Desert "The sun was sinking in the west African afternoon when we plunged into a wild Land Rover ride across the dunes. Within moments we lost all sense of direction, regaining it only momentarily when we caught a glimpse of the sea, as we sped along the notorious Skeleton Coast of Namibia. When we finally stopped, it was at the top of a crescent-shaped behemoth. On the inside of the curve, the dune was a good 200 feet high and as close to vertical as a sand dune gets. "We gathered timidly at the edge of the precipice. But our guide, seemingly bent ...