The Earth Story

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Ooh yay, one of my favorite groups that captures videos from the national parks just posted this one from Death Valley National Park in California. Original caption:

The Sailing Stones of Racetrack Playa, Death Valley (background changed slightly) turned into an animated tale.

Sunrise and morning view of one of the sailing stones and the trail behind it at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park.

We don’t deserve this place.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park is one of my favorite sites on Earth. It’s practically the middle of nowhere – you drive past Ubehebe crater, a volcanic crater created by a series of steam explosions, you drive down a dirt road past a road sign that people have added teakettles to for decades for some reason, you pull up to a parking space next to a flat lake with the occasional rock on it. You park, calmly walk out on the lake bed, and eventually come upon rock after rock with a clear trail behind it – somehow the rocks were pushed across the lake, almost like magic. This site remained a mystery until only two years ago, when scientists captured the movement of the rocks on camera – pushed by winds pressing against thin sheets of ice that form on the lake’s surface. (https://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1gb7QP3). A couple miles down the road there’s as peaceful of a campsite as you’ll ever find. Death Valley is an International Dark Sky park – you can just turn out the lights and stare up. If the Moon is out, it lights up the entire landscape. If it isn’t, you can watch the light of the Milky Way march across the sky.

We don’t deserve this spot. I mean that to all of us. Humans, we have proven it.

This photo was one of many released by the US National Park Service. Someone drove a vehicle out onto Racetrack Playa itself, despite large rocks at the edge you’d have to drive over and posts that clearly mark the site as not open to driving.

The reason why you’re able to see the tracks of the sliding stones is that it takes years, decades even for the lake surface to repair itself. When it rains, the lake gets wet, but there isn’t enough motion of the sediment to erase the trails. You can track single rock trails across the playa for years, decades. People can walk on it without damaging it, but people don’t weight as much as a car.

Someone took a vehicle onto Racetrack Playa, driving all over the lakebed. Tracks run from one side of the dry lakebed to the other, even crossing the tracks of the sailing stones.

The Park Service says it has a lead on the culprit, but there are no cameras on this site. I wish them good hunting. The Park Service may be able to spray some of these areas to give the lakebed a chance to recover, but it is unlikely to fully get rid of the tracks, and press reports estimate the track is longer than 10 miles.

Someone carved their initials into one of the sailing stones just for good measure. I’d swear if I thought it would help.

-JBB

Image credit: National Park Service/SFGate http://bit.ly/2dqKGvw

I totally once spent several hours after everyone else in camp had gone to bed at a site just outside Racetrack Playa doing nothing but staring upward. This videographer turned that concept into a video.

Sailing Stones of Death Valley – The Mystery of the Moving Rocks Finally Solved!

This a continuation of a previous post, and therefore this post will not be providing in-depth background info on the Sailing Stones. Please read the original post here for further information: http://on.fb.me/1DzJvRl

For almost a century, scientists have been not been able to solve the mystery of the sailing stones in Racetrack Playa. Rocks as large as 700lbs (320kg) have been seen with long tracks behind them, for no apparent reason. Many hypotheses were formed to try to explain this phenomenal event. Researchers thought it could be hurricane-force winds, or perhaps slippery algae, or thin ice sheets, but no human had ever been able to witness the event to confirm it.

In 2011, researchers equipped 15 of their own rocks with GPS devices and placed them in Racetrack Playa. For two years, nothing happened. Then finally, in December 2013, the precise conditions needed for movement occurred: 1) shallow flooding of the valley (deep enough for floating ice, but shallow enough to not fully submerse the rocks); 2) subzero temperatures, followed by warming; 3) light wind. So how does this result in our sailing stones? Simple: the ice freezes overnight and begins melting in the morning. Thin (3-5mm thick) sheets of broken ice float on the surface of the water. A slight breeze (in this case: 16 km/h) pushes these ice sheets along the surface of the water, which then pushes the boulders just a few inches per second. The researchers were able to document 5 moving events over a couple of months, which helped confirm their findings.

Mystery solved!

~Rosie

Image Credit: http://bit.ly/1xd5VFS

Full paper by Lorenz et. al., 2014 can be read online here: http://bit.ly/1FyWwtv

Reference & video: http://cnet.co/1CtNyyE

RACETRACK PLAYA MYSTERY SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!! Today, a long-awaited paper was published in the open-access journal PLOS One. A team led by a scientist from Scripps institute of oceanography finally observed what no one has seen before; the rocks of Racetrack Playa sliding. Racetrack playa is a dry lakebed in the northern part of Death Valley. It is distinguished by the features you see here; rocks from one side of the playa have left trails as they somehow slid across to the other side. There have been a variety of theories for how this happens, including freezing the lake to an icy surface and strong winds, but until last winter no one had ever actually observed it in process, making it a truly great geologic mystery. Using a combination of time lapse cameras and GPS monitoring as seen on the rock in this photo, this team finally, successfully got it last year during winter. The answer turns out to be that the rocks are actually pushed by ice sheets. Last year, the lake received ~5 cm of precipitation in the form of both rain and snow, enough to cause a thin layer of water above the muddy surface of the lake. During nights with sub-freezing temperatures, this layer of water would freeze. In the morning when it was sunny, the ice would break up into large sheets of ice, only a couple millimeters in thickness, which could be pushed by the wind. Apparently there is even audio of the cracking noises made when these sheets break apart. Moderate winds on those mornings pushed these sheets of ice up against the rocks, in some cases piling up several ice sheets on the rock until finally there was enough force to make them move. The ice sheets sometimes break apart against the rocks, explaining how different rocks can be pushed in different directions or why some rocks don’t move while other nearby rocks do. Mystery solved. A wide, thin sheet of ice, created when the lake has a tiny bit of water in it, cracks apart when the sun reaches it in the morning, and is pushed by the wind, taking the rocks with it. I put some of the time-lapse video up at our blog a moment ago here:http://the-earth-story.com/post/95927612061/this-is-legit-omg-video-right-here-the-rocks-of -JBB Original paper and image credit:http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105948 A previous post of ours about Racetrack:

THIS IS LEGIT OMG VIDEO RIGHT HERE!!! The rocks of Racetrack Playa, in Death Valley, caught moving on camera for the first time! Watch our Facebook page or later in this feed for the full post.

The Mystery of Racetrack Playa  The solitude and mystery surrounding Death Valley's Racetrack Playa attracts countless visitors each year. The most fascinating feature of this dried up river basin is the rock population. Approximately 200 rocks call this region home and are perhaps the area's greatest mystery.  The rocks of Racetrack Playa are known for "speeding" around the basin all on their own - some have even reached speeds of up to four miles per hour! The rocks move individually of each other, in random patterns and can leave tracks up to half a mile in length.  Recently David Kingham of David Kingham Photographyspent come time in Death Valley and said his experience was "indescribable". Being able to sit there under the stars, among these mysterious rocks is something he will never forget.  Here is how he captured this incredible shot: Foreground is a long exposure at ISO 800, focus stacked 4 shots to get everything in focus and the sky is ISO 6400, 30", f/2.8 Fun fact: each rock is fitted with a tracking device and monitored. -ALT To check out our previous posts on Death Valley, click here: http://on.fb.me/1ifwMZO http://on.fb.me/1g2Xyl2 Image & Source Credit:  https://www.facebook.com/kinghamphotography www.davidkinghamphotography.com

Milky way over Racetrack Playa Famous for its mysterious sailing stones and land speed records, this dry salt lake in Death Valley provides an eerie setting and good dark sky for the night's glowing stars. Loz Image credit: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (DeepSkyColors.com)

  MYSTERIOUS MOVING ROCKS IN DEATH VALLEY At 85.95 meters (282 ft) below sea level in one of the hottest and most remote regions of the world, a strange phenomenon has been occurring in Death Valley. On the Racetrack Playa (a dried out lake-bed), mysterious rocks seem to be moving at their own discretion, leaving trails in the dry sediment behind them. Many of these trails extend well over 250 meters (≈820 ft) and some of the rocks weigh well over 10 kg (≈22 lbs). One of the largest rocks, nicknamed Karen, is even estimated to weigh over 315 kg (≈700 lbs). Many of the rocks' paths cross one another, change directions at sharp angles, and seem to have minds of their own. This mystery has been studied since before the 1940’s and there have been many proposed explanations as to why it even occurs. The theory that the rocks are being moved by either people or some other animal has been widely dismissed by researchers because of no disturbed soil surrounding the rocks or trails in addition to an overwhelming lack of evidence. One possible explanation for this bizarre occurrence is that strong desert winds push the rocks in small intervals over many years. However, some of the heavier rocks would require wind speeds that exceed 240 kmph (≈149 mph); speeds much higher than the highest wind velocities of Death Valley which clock in at around 145 kmph (≈90 mph). Another popular theory that has been proposed suggests that collected rainwater is what is moving the rocks. Although the area is known to receive only about 5.08 cm (2 in) of precipitation per year, water does collect in the playa when it rains. This muddies the soil and could potentially slide the rocks across the playa surface. This theory is even more popular when the force of wind is incorporated into the mix. With a muddy surface and less friction, the documented wind velocities could possibly move the rocks across the surface. Others have proposed that ice sheets formed on the soil's surface could be moving the rocks. Ice sheets that form in the winter could freeze around the rocks and trap them within. Then, with strong enough winds, the entire ice sheet could be pushed which would drag the rocks with them. Though this is another plausible theory, the moving ice would most likely leave behind other carvings and scars in the ground; none of which have yet been discovered. With all this said, still to this day no one has ever seen these rocks move with their own eyes and the answer is still unknown. Whatever the reason may be, this ongoing mystery has captivated the minds and attention of scientists, science enthusiasts, and even some conspiracy theorists for over 70 years now and the list of theories and hypotheses continues to grow. Until the real truth is discovered, we can only speculate our own theories, ponder our own ideas, and enjoy the mysterious beauty that rests behind it all. -Pete D Photo Credit: Inge Johnsson Photography http://ingejohnsson.photoshelter.com/gallery/California/G000069e00kVUMcA/ References: 1. http://www.mysterious-planet.com/sliding-stones-of-racetrack-playa.php 2. http://www.nps.gov/deva/naturescience/weather-and-climate.htm 3. http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks.shtml 4. http://phys.org/news/2011-02-ice-explanation-death-valley-mysterious.html 5. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/death-valley/cahill-text-p5.html 6. http://www.usa.com/death-valley-ca-weather.htm#HistoricalWind%20Speed