The mystery of Death Valley's sailing stones has been solved

By techbeck
in Science News & Discussion

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Grand Master

techbeck

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On a cracked lakebed in Death Valley called Racetrack Playa, there are a collection of boulders, some weighing several hundred pounds, that clearly, mysteriously, move. They leave long serpentine trails behind them in the dirt, and for decades visitors have guessed at how they migrate across the desert floor. Hurricane force winds, sliding sheets of ice ? and, of course, aliens ? were all contenders, but then last December the cousins Richard Norris and James Norris caught the rocks in the act.


 


In a paper published in Plos One, they describe watching a thin layer of ice break into large panes and get pushed by a light wind against the boulders, which then began to slide through the mud at about 15 feet a minute. "We were sitting on a mountainside and admiring the view when a light wind kicked up and the ice started cracking," Richard told the LA Times. "Suddenly, the whole process unfolded before our eyes."


 


more...


http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/28/6079445/the-mystery-of-death-valleys-sailing-stones-has-been-solved


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Grand Master

Draconian Guppy

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I SWARE I saw a documentary on this on Discovery Channel YEARS ago saying this exact same thing?....

yeah, but documentary not a "published paper" that's the only difference :P

 

Plus discovery channel will document almost anything... :laugh:

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Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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I think you guys are being a bit harsh:

Conditions need to be perfect. First there needs to be rain ? obviously a rarity in Death Valley ? then the temperature needs to drop below freezing, then it has to warm up fast enough to rapidly melt the ice, and then there needs to be wind to break the ice and push it against the stones.

I don't know about you, but I'm not going to sit and look at a rock for a prolonged period of time, hoping that perfect conditions come along when I don't know what those perfect conditions need to be. Yes, now that it's been explained we can sit here and go, "makes sense," but we only went and started attaching GPS trackers to these rocks in 2011.

Oh well, another mystery solved either way.

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