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Mystery of Death Valley's Sliding Rocks Solved

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KynloStephen66515:

Photo credit: Looking north from the south shore of Racetrack Playa on December 20, 2013 at 3:15 pm. Steady, light wind has blown water to the northeast exposing newly formed rock trails / 2014 Norris et al., PLoS ONE
Racetrack Playa is home to an enduring Death Valley mystery. Littered across the surface of this dry lake, also called a “playa,” are hundreds of rocks – some weighing as much as 320 kilograms (700 pounds) – that seem to have been dragged across the ground, leaving synchronized trails that can stretch for hundreds of meters.

What powerful force could be moving them? Researchers have investigated this question since the 1940s, but no one has seen the process in action – until now.

In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE on Aug. 27, a team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, paleobiologist Richard Norris reports on first-hand observations of the phenomenon.

Because the stones can sit for a decade or more without moving, the researchers did not originally expect to see motion in person. Instead, they decided to monitor the rocks remotely by installing a high-resolution weather station capable of measuring gusts to one-second intervals and fitting 15 rocks with custom-built, motion-activated GPS units. (The National Park Service would not let them use native rocks, so they brought in similar rocks from an outside source.) The experiment was set up in winter 2011 with permission of the Park Service. Then – in what Ralph Lorenz of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University, one of the paper’s authors, suspected would be  “the most boring experiment ever” – they waited for something to happen.

But in December 2013, Norris and co-author and cousin Jim Norris arrived in Death Valley to discover that the playa was covered with a pond of water seven centimeters (three inches) deep. Shortly after, the rocks began moving.

“Science sometimes has an element of luck,” Richard Norris said. “We expected to wait five or ten years without anything moving, but only two years into the project, we just happened to be there at the right time to see it happen in person.” - Continue Reading...
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Source Story: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/mystery-solved-sailing-stones-death-valley-seen-action-first-time
Story Found On: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/mystery-death-valleys-sliding-rocks-solved

40hz:
Cool.... :) ...uh, no :huh:

Bummer!  :(

I kinda liked it more when we didn't really know how it worked.  8)

Some harmless mystery is always nice to have around. ;D

mwb1100:
I agree with 40hz (sorry for what's probably the most boring post on DC).

Stoic Joker:
First the Crystal Skull is declared a fake, and now this!

Earth sucks... :(

superboyac:
Cool.... :) ...uh, no :huh:

Bummer!  :(

I kinda liked it more when we didn't really know how it worked.  8)

Some harmless mystery is always nice to have around. ;D
-40hz (August 28, 2014, 05:31 PM)
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of all people!   :D

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