High-Tech Sleuthing Cracks Mystery of Death Valley's Moving Rocks

[knocker]

Could it be global warming I asked myself. but no.................................

 

 

The first witnesses to an enduring natural mystery are an engineer, a biologist and a planetary scientist who met thanks to a remote weather station.

This odd group has captured the first video footage of Death Valley's sailing stones creeping across Racetrack Playa. For a century, these eerie rocks and their long, graceful trails have stumped visitors and scientists. The boulders of black dolomite appear to move on their own, sliding uphill across the playa's flat lakebed. The trails are the only evidence the rocks move. No one has ever seen them set sail. [Video: Sailing Stones of Death Valley Seen in Action]

 

http://www.livescience.com/47585-death-valley-moving-rocks.html

[4wd]

How do they slide "uphill across a flat lake bed" ?
That mechanism was suggested as a possibility in the 1950s, affordable video cameras have finally shown what happens.

[knocker]

How do they slide "uphill across a flat lake bed" ?

That mechanism was suggested as a possibility in the 1950s, affordable video cameras have finally shown what happens.

 

Just for you much more detail from a couple of tweets from Eric Steig.

 

1 of 2 posts. The late, great, John B. Reid, Jr. proven right about the race-track playa rocks. It's ice! http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105948#s4 â€¦ 1/2

 

2 of 2. And here is the original article by my much-missed undergrad advisor, JB Reid, Jr.: http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/23/9/819 â€¦

[Snowyowl9]

Levitation.