Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sailing Stones of Death Valley


There's all sorts of people who go out investigating haunted houses and abandoned mental asylums to hunt down and record weird unexplainable things like objects apparently moving on their own, mysterious and usually creepy noises, and disembodied lights or figures.
But there are plenty of places that demand no such attention but are equally and maybe even more mysterious and intriguing, without all the skeptical and often fabricated nonsense.
Death Valley, a desert located in southern California, exhibits a dry lake known as the Racetrack Playa--the stage for the geological phenomenon known as the sailing stones, or moving rocks. Over years, rocks sizing from pebbles to boulders have carved their own trails across the playa without human or animal intervention. The force behind their movement is debated, and theories include strong winds and ice floes in conjunction with a saturated valley floor.
The tracks made by the stones are often inconsistent and variable--some rocks may start out next to each other moving in parallel lines before one abruptly changes direction. The speed in which the rocks move is also unknown, since they move only every two to three years and no one has ever witnessed their movements.
Most of the rocks originate from a dolomite hillside at the south end of the playa. The tracks can be hundreds of feet long, up to a foot wide, and usually less than an inch deep.
Several studies and monitoring programs have taken place over the years, but none have conclusively explained the motion of the mysterious sliding rocks. I bet God's just having fun with us.

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