Sounds from a frozen lake!

Once in a while, a great while, down here in the south, it gets cold enough to freeze a lake. I think it's happened once or twice since the big freeze we had in January 2000. A few days ago the lake reservoir behind our house had developed a good bit of ice on its surface. Time to throw a rock across the ice and listen to the lake sing! It's a magical sound. A little web surfing found some recordings of ice "singing" on a frozen lake, and a few attempts to explain this interesting phenomenon. The sound seems to come from the ice itself vibrating like the skin stretched across a drum head. The best recording is Marc Namblard's "Chants of Frozen Lakes"! You can buy his CD, but scroll down a little to listen to some free audio extracts of his recording. Not quite the same as that stone skipping along the ice, but amazing nonetheless. Enjoy!