Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Moving Stones
Racetrack Playa (national park of Death Valley, California) is famous for its moving stones. The floor of the playa (an ancient lake) is dried, scorched mud which has broken into perfect little octagons and pentagons. It's as flat as flat can be. And there are roaming rocks which seem to move on their own. The stones vary from pebble size to half ton boulders and vary in size and shape due to them breaking off the hills you see behind in the photo. Their tracks vary in length and go every which way from zig-zags to loops and double back on themselves. Some travel only a few feet; others go for hundreds of yards. How wind loops and doubles back on itself and zig zags? Why two rocks right next to each other take totally different paths, why some are left untouched?
For a long time the reasons why baffled geologists and scientists who studied them until to geologists from CalTech did a seven year study on them. They concluded that the reason the rocks move is because, under specific weather conditions, rain or heavy fog or dew makes the mud slippery and wet, and the winds push the rocks around.
These huge stones have the ability to move themselves across the dry, dusty desert floor sometimes as much as 900 FEET in a single movement. While no one has ever actually seen a stone move, Dr. Robert P. Sharp, a geologist in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, states that he monitored the movement of 30 stones from 1968 to 1974. Dr. Sharp states that stones move at speeds of up to three feet per second, and have been known to move as much as two miles.
For a long time the reasons why baffled geologists and scientists who studied them until to geologists from CalTech did a seven year study on them. They concluded that the reason the rocks move is because, under specific weather conditions, rain or heavy fog or dew makes the mud slippery and wet, and the winds push the rocks around.
These huge stones have the ability to move themselves across the dry, dusty desert floor sometimes as much as 900 FEET in a single movement. While no one has ever actually seen a stone move, Dr. Robert P. Sharp, a geologist in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, states that he monitored the movement of 30 stones from 1968 to 1974. Dr. Sharp states that stones move at speeds of up to three feet per second, and have been known to move as much as two miles.
At one point, Dr. Sharp and Dwight Carey, formerly of the Department of Geology at U.C.L.A, positioned iron stakes around each of the stones to measure the slightest movement. But even these posed no obstacle, once the stones started moving. Apparently these stakes didn't stop 28 of the 30 stones from escaping and moving outside the encirclement, Dr. Sharp revealed. Some immutable law of nature somehow prescribes that movements will occur only in the darkness of stormy nights. Interestingly, of the 30 stones monitored, Dr. Sharp said seven actually disappeared inexplicably and without a trace.Any attempt of explanation has been revealed insufficient. The same Sharp proposes a combination of ice and wind that would act during the night (probably a phenomenon similar to the "pipkrakes" of the periglacial environment). He admits that at the moment every explanation is purely assumptive.
Don Spalking is superintendent of Death Valley National Monument. He knows Dr. Sharp, and he knows the doctor's research to find out what really makes the stones move. "The experts have been coming here for years" he says, "But no one has actually seen a stone move. We know they do it, but we don't know how or why".One of the rangers of the park said he thinks it has something to do with magnetics underground.
Don Spalking is superintendent of Death Valley National Monument. He knows Dr. Sharp, and he knows the doctor's research to find out what really makes the stones move. "The experts have been coming here for years" he says, "But no one has actually seen a stone move. We know they do it, but we don't know how or why".One of the rangers of the park said he thinks it has something to do with magnetics underground.
He said some of it could be wind for sure and that the mud did get slippery when it was damp or wet, but that didn't explain how two rocks right next to each other could go in two opposite directions or one could stay put while one three times the size, didn't. He stated that he's seen the rocks moving long distances when it's perfectly dry out and there is NO wind, or the "conditions" that are said to be needed for it to happen just weren't there. Since it's a desert it rarely rains except during monsoon season, and at times it does get very foggy in the morning, yet the rocks do this all year long.
Can the only force of wind move of the stones on a frozen surface? And how could this lake cover itself of ice or hoarfrost during the night? We are in a desert in California!
Can the only force of wind move of the stones on a frozen surface? And how could this lake cover itself of ice or hoarfrost during the night? We are in a desert in California!
And so the scientists continue to research and study the secret of the mysterious moving stones of Death Valley, California, in another classic example of the unexplained.
Top 10 Mysterious World Landmarks
Sacsayhuaman
Not far from the famous Inca city of Machu Picchu lies Sacsayhuaman, a strange embankment of stone walls located just outside of Cuzco . The series of three walls was assembled from massive 200-ton blocks of rock and limestone, and they are arranged in a zigzag pattern along the hillside. The longest is roughly 1000 feet in length and each stands some fifteen feet tall. The monument is in astonishingly good condition for its age, especially considering the regions propensity for earthquakes, but the tops of the walls are somewhat demolished, as the monument was plundered by the Spanish to build churches in Cuzco . The area surrounding the monument has been found to be the source of several underground catacombs called chincanas, which were supposedly used as connecting passageways to other Inca structures in the area.
Goseck Circle
One of the most mysterious landmarks in Germany is the Goseck Circle , a monument made out of earth, gravel, and wooden palisades that is regarded as the earliest example of a primitive œsolar observatory. The circle consists of a series of circular ditches surrounded by palisade walls (which have since been reconstructed) that house a raised mound of dirt in the center. The palisades have three openings, or gates, that point southeast, southwest, and north. It is believed that the monument was built around 4900 BC by Neolithic peoples, and that the three openings correspond to the direction from which the sun rises on the winter solstice.
The Nazca Lines
The Nazca lines are a series of designs and pictographs carved into the ground in the Nazca Desert , a dry plateau located in Peru . They cover an area of some 50 miles, and were supposedly created between 200 BC and 700 AD by the Nazca Indians, who designed them by scraping away the copper colored rocks of the desert floor to expose the lighter-colored earth beneath.The lines have managed to remain intact for hundreds of years thanks to the regions arid climate, which sees it receive little rain or wind throughout the year. Some of the lines span distances of 600 feet, and they depict everything from simple designs and shapes to characterizations of plants, insects, and animals.
The Cahokia Mounds
Cahokia is the name given to an Indian settlement that exists outside of Collinsville , Illinois . Archeologists estimate that the city was founded sometime around 650 AD, and its complex network of burial grounds and sophisticated landscaping prove that it was once a thriving community. It has been estimated that at its peak the city was home to as many as 40,000 people, which would have made it the most populous settlement in America prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The most notable aspect of Cahokia today are the 80 mounds of earth, some as high as 100 feet, which dot the 2,200-acre site. These helped create a network of plazas throughout the city, and it is believed that important buildings, like the home of the settlements chief, were built on top of them. The site also features a series of wooden posts that archeologists have dubbed woodhenge. The posts are said to mark the solstices and equinoxes, and supposedly figured prominently in the communitys astronomical mythology.
New Grange
Considered to be the oldest and most famous prehistoric site in all of Ireland , New-grange is a tomb that was built from earth, wood, clay, and stone around 3100 BC, some 1000 years before the construction of the pyramids in Egypt . It consists of a long passage that leads to a cross-shaped chamber that was apparently used as a tomb, as it contains stone basins filled with cremated remains. The most unique feature of Newgrange is its careful and sturdy design, which has helped the structure remain completely waterproof to this day. Most amazing of all, the entrance to the tomb was positioned relative to the sun in such a way that on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the rays from the sun are channeled through the opening and down the nearly 60 foot passageway, where they illuminate the floor of the monuments central room.
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