2026-07-24
On July 22, 2026, the International Organization for Media, Creativity & Development held an open dialogue through its electronic platform, with the participation of many academics and specialists from different fields. They exchanged their views and experiences on: The Geophonic Component in Soundscape Ecology.
The main points addressed in the dialogue:
1. Definition of Geophony
Geophony is defined as one of the modern branches of Soundscape Ecology, which also includes Biophony (sounds of living organisms) and Anthrophony (human and industrial sounds). The geophonic branch studies sounds produced by “non-living” elements in the environment such as wind, waves, rocks, sand, ice, and earthquakes. This modern specialization represents an attempt to understand the Earth through analyzing sounds generated by physical processes in nature.
2. Tools and Techniques
Tools and techniques used in geophony include spectral sound analysis, instruments for measuring ground vibrations, and ultra-sensitive microphones.
3. Some Detailed Information about:
- Wind sounds, their frequencies and controlling variables such as air speed, terrain shape, type of vegetation, rock density, and humidity.
- Water sounds: waves, currents, air bubbles, rainfall, and water striking rocks, in addition to factors controlling frequency levels resulting from water’s physical processes.
- Rock and sand sounds: such as “singing sands,” where sand dunes produce a sound resembling singing due to the vibration of homogeneous sand grains during surface collapse of dunes. Rocks, when exposed to thermal or mechanical pressure, emit cracking sounds and fine vibrations ranging between 10–200 Hz.
- Ice sounds and frequencies resulting from expansion and contraction, cracking, sliding of sheets, and trapped air bubbles.
- Earthquake and volcanic sounds, and frequencies recorded by specialized devices but not directly heard by humans. Earthquakes produce infrasonic waves, while active volcanoes generate a hum between 0.5–3 Hz.
4. Applied Benefits of Geophony
- Monitoring ecosystem health: for example, changes in natural sounds may indicate forest degradation, climate change, coastal erosion, and disturbance of biological balance.
- Disaster prediction: sound analysis helps in predicting earthquakes, monitoring volcanic activity, and tracking avalanches and other disasters.
- Sound therapy: natural sounds are used to reduce stress, improve sleep, and re-regulate neural rhythm.
- Environmental sound engineering: this branch of knowledge helps design cities in a way that considers noise distribution and integrates natural sounds into urban planning.
5. Complete Absence in the Arab World
This specialization is entirely absent as an independent track in the Arab world, despite its global development during the last two decades. Some Arab universities teach topics somewhat related to Geophony, such as acoustic geology, analysis of ground vibrations, monitoring environmental changes through sound, and studying wave sounds within marine and ocean sciences. However, Arab universities generally tend toward traditional geology, classical environmental sciences, and artistic sound engineering, and they clearly suffer from weak awareness of the importance of the environmental soundscape.
*This session was moderated by the President of the Organization, Dr. Madeleine Kassab, who raised critical questions about some of the terms used in this branch of science and in other fields of knowledge such as Biology. The following is an excerpt from her intervention:
*“Geophony is not merely the study of sounds of ‘natural elements’; it is an attempt to understand the Earth as a living entity possessing its own language—a language read through frequencies and vibrations, granting us a new way to know geological, environmental, and energetic history and present, through the soundscape produced by nature and through which it stores its secrets.
- Accordingly, if the Earth is a living being, how can its elements be considered or described in scientific literature as ‘non-living’?
- Do we not need a ‘conceptual revolution’ that liberates the meaning of ‘life’ from the prison of biological processes into the realms of “cosmic energy” that sustains all forms of activities and processes, including biological and physical ones?
- Are not the concepts of ‘living’ and ‘non-living’ tied to the limitations and shortcomings of human understanding of the essence of the universe? In addition to the weakness of cooperation and overlap between different scientific sectors—such as coordination between biology and quantum physics?
- Is not death at one level a form of life at another? A corpse is considered a being without life, but is it truly so at the energetic and microscopic level?
- Could the absolute separation between sounds resulting from physical processes and those resulting from biological processes be a real obstacle preventing deep awareness of the process of creation? Do not biological and physical processes affect one another in form and substance, at the level of particles and energy?
- Changing concepts certainly contributes to changing perception and interaction with existential elements—visible and invisible, audible and inaudible, tangible and intangible, perceptible and imperceptible—and thus contributes to changing the very properties of ‘life’ itself.”*
