There are a few age-old mysteries in this world with theories behind them that don’t have sinister undertones. Instead of attributing them to aliens, the paranormal, or time travel, the unsolved mysteries are examined in a more scientific light. Sometimes, mysteries are thought to be explainable by science, but the scientific proof hasn't yet been discovered. Other times, there’s an even simpler likely explanation, such as being a hoax. One of these age-old mysteries, the sailing stones of Death Valley, fell into this category — until now. A team of scientists have solved the mystery, and even caught it on video.
The most likely solution to the mystery involves a combination of wind, temperature and water. Although Racetrack Playa is a dry lakebed, it is not always dry; in fact, water collects on the surface after rainfall or when snow from surrounding peaks melts. Brian Dunning, a California researcher who discussed this mystery on his Skeptoid podcast, notes that when water is present and the temperature falls below freezing — as it sometimes does — a thin sheet of ice is created: "Solid ice, moving with the surface of the lake and with the inertia of a whole surrounding ice sheet, would have no trouble pushing a rock along the slick muddy floor... As the wind shifts and the flow ebbs, these ice floes drag the rocks across the slippery mud surface in zig-zagging paths, even moving heavy rocks and sometimes dragging some but washing past others nearby."
NASA researcher Ralph Lorenz became intrigued by the enigmatic stones while studying Death Valley weather conditions. He developed a tabletop experiment to show how the rocks might glide across the surface of the lakebed.
"I took a small rock and put it in a piece of Tupperware, and filled it with water so there was an inch of water with a bit of the rock sticking out," Lorenz told Smithsonian.com.
After putting the container in the freezer, Lorenz ended up with a small slab of ice with a rock embedded in it. By placing the ice-bound rock in a large tray of water with sand at the bottom, all he had to do was gently blow on the rock to get it to move across the water. And as the ice-embedded rock moved, it scraped a trail in the sand at the tray's bottom.
Sources:
http://www.livescience.com/45876-sailing-stones.html
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188845-age-old-mystery-of-death-valley-sailing-stones-finally-solved
anyone seen this Spongebob episode ? haha
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