Thursday, August 28, 2014

Mysterious Rocks Moving

As you've no doubt heard there are rocks in Death Valley that leave trails behind them as they crawl through the sand. Wait? What? Rocks leave a trail? Indeed he says professorially.


Its been a mystery for some time, but not anymore.

A team of knuckleheads got together and figured out how and why. "A rare combination of water and ice combines to move the rocks, the researchers said. The playa lake needs to be deep enough for floating ice, but shallow enough to leave the rocks exposed. The surface ice should be thin "windowpane" ice, but strong enough to break into big panels that can bully the rocks. Finally, the freezing nights need to be followed by sunny days with light winds, which drive the cracking ice across the lake."

Live Science has the full article and its pretty funny, some of the comments said. Enjoy it here.


The world is just a little less interesting.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now we know how this stuff happens on Mars. maybe its not rivers or streams or roads but moving rocks

Troll Lord said...

Hmm Very interesting. We know there are water crystals in the soil of mars. You could be on to something there.

Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds: An Introduction

For several weeks now, we’ve been hyping up the Gygaxian Fantasy World series on various platforms, Facebook, X, Instagram, and Twitch. It ...