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Sliding Rocks Bemuse Scientists
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists can't figure out why these rocks — weighing up to several hundred pounds each — slide across a dry lake bed. The leading theory proposes that wind moves the rocks after a rain when the lake bed consists of soft and very slippery mud.
Mark Newman has a very nice sliding rock poster with a good shot of rock and trail in a variety of sizes.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
If there is really this much interest in figuring out how the rocks move, its pretty easy to do. Mount a solar powered camera with a motion detector. If the rock moves start shooting. If you really want to get fancy, you could do a continual time lapse to catch the movement if it is too slow for the motion detector. I think they do this kinda thing when you want to get pictures of wild animals in there natural habitat and the cameras are avaliable at your nearest outdoor outfitter.
I've camped a few times at Texas Spring campground in Death Valley. Nice place in the right times of the year. One year, however, the wind blew all night at about 40 knots. Nearly took me and my tent away. There are sand dunes to the north of the valley, too. I expect the winds there are more than up to the task of pushing around rocks on moist clay. Perhaps most enigmatic is the question, 'Why don't these larger rocks sink into the mud?' Though with strong enough winds, I imagine they could get a move on again.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In true /. form, you either failed to RTFA or to WTFV, as the video clearly does not show the rocks moving. It shows water and miscelaneous floating scum moving, and posits the same theories as in the article (just claiming them to have been proven).
And as to the foolishly simple explanation, H.L. Mekcken is quoted to have said, "Every complex problem has a solution that is simple, direct, plausible, and wrong".
Dear AC: http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/begged+the+question STFU.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
There are a number of reasons why they haven't:
* The rocks don't move very often -- typically once every two or three years.
* Cheap webcams have only been around for a few years, and I don't know if there have been any movement episodes during this time.
* It's an incredibly hostile environment for electronic equipment: surface temperatures of 150+ degrees F during summer days, temperatures below zero F during winter nights, violent rainstorms, and intense direct sunlight.
* There is no electricity. There is no internet service. There is no wireless phone service. During the rainstorms when the rocks are expected to be moving, there is no satellite service.
* There's the ever-present risk of theft.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I'm siding with Paul Brians on this one.
http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html
Raises the question != Begs the question.
:x
From a dependable source: In the heat of summer, Death Valley roasts in temperatures greater than 120 degrees, cool when compared with the surface temperature of the salt pan. "The ground temperature gets to over 200 degrees [f] at some points here," says Dr. Douglas. I'd wager that the surface temperatures at the Racetrack in early afternoon during high summer range above the boiling point of water at sea level*, since the racetrack's playa is lower and darker than the salt pan at Badwater. In other words, don't fall; you'll skin and burn your knees.
If you've never been to Death Valley in the summer, you should give it a try. If you're from a mild climate, I suggest March instead; the regular 90 degree temperatures before April has shown it's face will give you a little idea of the radical heat that this region experiences.
*The Racetrack and Badwater are both below sea level, so you'd need to get up to at least 240f to boil water.