Science Wednesday: sailing stones of Death Valley
invite response
2014 Aug 27, 1:25pm 559 views 1 comment
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Dan8267
2014 Sep 26, 12:56am
Dan8267
2014 Sep 26, 12:56am
But that's not magic!
Damn, another thing that proved the existence of god that now doesn't.
For the first time, humans have observed the movement of the mysterious sailing stones of Death Valley's Racetrack Playa -- and caught them on camera.
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As it turns out, the movement requires the perfect concatenation of events. First, the playa has to fill with water, which must be deep enough to form floating ice during winter, but still shallow enough that the rocks are exposed.
When the temperature drops at night, this pond freezes into thin sheets of "windowpane" ice, which then must be thick enough to maintain strength, but thin enough to move freely.
Finally, when the sun comes out, the ice melts and cracks into floating panels; these are blown across the playa by light winds, propelling the rocks in front of them."