It's now official. We can stop calling them "sailing stones". New video shows that playa rocks are being barged across the lakebed. Apparently, wind-driven, floating sheets of ice are dragging or pushing the rocks leaving their "tracks" in the wet lakebed sediment.
Photos in the article show tracks of rocks that make tight turns and circle back into the direction from which they had come. This shows that, in these cases, the rocks are locked into the ice-sheet. http://images.realclear.com/256104_5_.jpg Bob V. Information (and sources) forward for archival purposes: ----------- Forward Text ----------- Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 7:51:48 -0400 From: "Paul H." To: Rockhounds List Subject: [Rockhounds] ?Sailing Stones? of Death Valley Mystery Solved Mystery Solved: ?Sailing Stones? of Death Valley Seen in Action for the First Time (Thin sheets of ice push rocks across the desert when conditions are just right. Scripps Institution of Oceanography https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/mystery-solved-sailing-stones-death-valley-seen-action-first-time?hash=3f42fa4a60340630b1fde436c4f177fe Mystery Of Death Valley's 'Sailing Stones' Has Finally Been Solved by Ryan Grenoble The Huffington Post, August 27, 2014 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/27/death-valley-sailing-stones-solved_n_5718827.html Mystery solved: The sailing stones of Death Valley by Michelle Starr, CNET, August 27, 2014 http://www.cnet.com/news/mystery-solved-the-sailing-stones-of-death-valley/ Finally! Secret of Death Valley?s ?Sailing Stones? Is Solved by Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine, Aug. 27, 2014 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/08/27/secret-behind-death-valleys-sailing-stones-revealed/ The paper is: Norris, J. D., J. M. Norris, R. D. Lorenz, J. Ray, and B. Jackson, 2014, Sliding Rocks on Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park: First Observation of Rocks in Motion. PLOS ONE. 9(8): e105948. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105948 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105948 Yours, Paul H. -------------- ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com https://pairlist3.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
