Author Topic: Moving desert rocks mystery explained. And they used RM Young wind monitor  (Read 1457 times)

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Offline DaleReid

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For those of us who have been fascinated by the mystery of the heavy rocks moving across a dry desert playa (RaceTrack Playa in Death Valley), the mystery has been solved.

This is a link to a nice article about it.  There are some Utube videos of a time lapse they captured of one of the little devils in motion, if you call a couple hundred pound rock a little devil.

No aliens involved.  Sorry UFO buffs.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rocks-move-death-valley-lake-bed-20140827-story.html

In some of the pictures on the sites there is a shot of a weather monitoring station and an an RM Young 5103 seems to have been used.

Enjoy.

Now that the mystery is solved, it still is very remarkable and holds my curiosity.

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Offline DaleReid

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Where the playa is in Death Valley, and a picture of the station.
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Offline miraculon

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Thanks for sharing the info. I had wondered about this for years.

Greg H.


Blitzortung Stations #706 and #1682
CoCoRaHS: MI-PI-1
CWOP: CW4114 and KE8DAF-13
WU: KMIROGER7
Amateur Radio Callsign: KE8DAF

Offline DaleReid

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You have good company.

Fascinating phenomenon and some very smart people were perplexed but a plausible explanation verified by observation makes a point on science.

Now I just want to see the place before I die....
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Offline ocala

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I'm still skeptical.
Broken little pieces of ice stack up against rocks and act as sails to push them across the surface? Maybe for smaller rocks I could accept this. For a 600lb rock, no way.
By the way I couldn't find the video you spoke of in the article.

Offline DaleReid

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I haven't walked on that mud, but having been on fine clay and not able to stand, but able to anchor and push a pickup across it with the slipperiness that it gave in another setting, I have no problem believing the mechanism.  I am from the farm, and having pushed a sizable pig off a pond with wet ice shows how friction can be minimized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyHcs7B27Zk#t=304

gives a good description, very complete.
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Offline ocala

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I haven't walked on that mud, but having been on fine clay and not able to stand, but able to anchor and push a pickup across it with the slipperiness that it gave in another setting, I have no problem believing the mechanism.  I am from the farm, and having pushed a sizable pig off a pond with wet ice shows how friction can be minimized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyHcs7B27Zk#t=304

gives a good description, very complete.
I know what you mean about clay. While 4 wheel driving in my PU a long time ago in southern Ohio I got into some wet red clay that was unlike any mud I ever encountered. More like grease then anything else.
Still, I just can't imagine a rock that large being pushed across the surface.  :???:

Offline DaleReid

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very weird.

I remember, however, an exhibit in the Science Museum in St. Paul, MN, where a huge bunch of crushed cars were in a big block, with a small device that used compressed air to float the darned thing.  The brick weighed a ton or more, but once the air lifted the block a few millimeters, one could overcome the inertia and glide it about with just a finger.  Still a lot of inertia to get it started, but very cool how low the resistance was otherwise.  Well, if they experience similar conditions and can get back there to set up more cameras to observe.  Or maybe the Dept of Interior will allow them to pull on an existing rock to see how slippery it is with the wet clay.

Speaking of that, there is Black Rock Desert that hosts the Burning Man but more importantly, the Large Dangerous Rocket Society, and when it rains even a smidgen, things get all fouled up.  I've not been there but heard from an attendee when there was a wee bit of precip that conditions were just absolutely awful.

I think Bonneville has dried salt on the surface and not clay like stuff.

I also remember hiking in Yellowstone and crossing the Snake River three times on our way out.  Boulders about the size of bowling balls were on one ford, and the spring melt silt had coated them, and it truly was as greasy as anything I've ever tried to pick up. 

So if conditions are right, I guess it might happen.

Did you get to see the video link?

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