Ringing Rocks of Bucks County, PA

I'd hammer in the morning

I'd hammer in the evening

All over this land.

-- The Hammer Song by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger

If I had a hammer, I would have hammered the ringing rocks of Bucks County. Instead, we banged the rocks into ringing with other rocks. They rang!

Ringing Rock Park

An isolated municipal park not far from the Delaware River hides in thick forest in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. Huge gray boulders fill acres of the park. You've got to know it's there. You've had to research its whereabouts. After a short walk in the woods, you are met with an amazingly large expanse of rocks that ring when hit with a hammer.

That's if you thought to bring a hammer. We didn't. We were unprepared, but nevertheless astounded upon striking the rocks with other rocks. They ring, but the sound from each is different from one another.

The rock is described as diabase, a hard igneous rock quarried for crushed rock, or trap. What's odd about the rocks--besides that they ring--is that no vegetation grows anywhere between the rocks in an area surrounded by forest.

How did they get there?

Another wonderment was how all those rocks got to be where they are. The prevailing theory is that the rocks used to be a mountain. After millions of years of freeze and thaw, solid rock broke apart. At the end of the Ice Age twelve thousand years ago or more, what was left was a collapsed mountain, broken into a field of boulders.

Waterfall

Farther away down a winding forest pathway was a waterfall. A steep set of huge flat layered rock made steps for water running downhill to cascade. A couple in love lay on the rocks beside where water flowed and fell. It was a scene out of Manet's Luncheon on the Grass sans food and nudes.

Why do they ring?

But the biggest wonderment is why the rocks ring. Understand that not all the rocks ring. Some are sonorous. Some are duds. Some ring out like you think the Liberty Bell should, should it be struck ever again. Some ring in resounding high notes, some ring in low. Some thud. All that hammering explains the white spots on the rocks where folks have been striking them for decades. It explains nothing about why the rocks ring.

Ringing offsite?

Some say the ringing rocks don't ring when removed from the site. There's no way to verify this theory, since picking up a rock won't happen without a back hoe. Besides, there's a sign prohibiting the removal of material from the park. Perhaps it's illegal for the rocks to ring offsite.

Hammer, anyone?

Still, why the rocks ring, ring differently, and don't ring elsewhere are the subjects of science heavily cloaked in speculation. They are a collection of heavens bells right here on earth. If I had a hammer, I'd be hammering them still.

Sources:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/160909/diabase

http://www.davidhanauer.com/buckscounty/ringingrocks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l'herbe