Sailing Stones
The mystery of the Sailing Stones can be witnessed in Racetrack Playa in Death Valley. The mystery is not in the stones themselves, but is concerning the movement of them. These rocks will mysteriously move leaving trails often hundreds of yards long, up to a foot wide and about an inch in depth. The movement of the rocks has never been witnessed and the force behind their movement is still disputed.
The rocks do not necessarily travel in a straight line either. The ones with smooth bottoms seem to wander a bit, but some rocks are known to make sharp and drastic changes in direction.
The winds in Death Valley have been known to be as high as 140km/hr and it has been thought that it may be the reason for the odd movements, but these rocks are not pebbles. The story of Karen, a 700lb rock, is quite interesting…
“Karen (stone J) is a 29 by 19 by 20 inches (74 by 48 by 51 cm) block of dolomite and weighs an estimated 700 pounds (318 kg). Karen did not move during the monitoring period. The stone may have created its 570 foot long straight and old track from momentum gained from its initial fall onto the wet playa. However, Karen disappeared sometime before May 1994, possibly during the unusually wet winter of 1992 to 1993. Removal by artificial means is considered unlikely due to the lack of associated damage to the playa that a truck and winch would have caused. A possible sighting of Karen was made in 1994 a half mile 800 m from the playa. Karen was rediscovered by San Jose geologist Paula Messina in 1996″ … Wikipedia
Before you change your summer vacation plans to go see these magically moving rocks, keep in mind that their movement isn’t something that happens overnight. Many of these rocks move over a matter of years! And not only that, but they seem to move only every two to three years?!
To say it’s a mystery is one thing, but to say that there are no valid theories as to why this is happening is incorrect too. Natural tremors were first thought to be the cause of the roaming rocks, but was easily tested and proving not to be the case. The best theory going is that the playa is flooded and then freezes. The extreme winds then push ice chunks floating on the flooded land around that catch on the rocks and drag them along to their new resting spot. It seems relatively likely and as mentioned earlier, the winds do reach 140km/hr giving this theory that much more credit. But keep in mind that a 700lb rock was moved so much that researches couldn’t find it for years! But with any good mystery, your theory is as good as the best theory going. So let your imagination run rampant and let me know what you think is causing these rocks to wander Death Valley.
by DJ Mikey Bones on May.20, 2011
Bizarre! – I like the freezing idea, maybe a combo of that and some magnetic effects? – the once every two to three years throws me off though – it should happen every year – they just need a good motion capture camera set up there (for 5 years – on a tower maybe?)