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Death Valley's Sailing Stones Caught In the Act

Capt.Albatross (1301561) writes "The flat surface of the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley is littered with rocks, some weighing hundreds of kilograms, each at the end of a track indicating that it has somehow slid across the surface. The mechanism behind this has been the subject of much speculation but little evidence, until a trio of scientists caught them in action with cameras and GPS."

48 comments

  1. From TFA: by Dins · · Score: 4, Informative

    Jagged plates of thin ice, resembling panels of broken glass, bulldoze the rocks across the flooded playa, the scientists reveal today (Aug. 27) in the journal PLOS One. Driven by gentle winds, the rocks seem to hydroplane atop the fluffy, wet mud. "It's a wonderful Goldilocks phenomenon," said lead study author Richard Norris. "Ponds like this are vanishingly rare in Death Valley, and it may be a decade between heavy enough rain or snowfall events to make a substantial pond," said Norris, a paleobiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.

    1. Re:From TFA: by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I wanted to read the article, why would I be posting on slashdot?

    2. Re:From TFA: by Dins · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You wouldn't. I took one for the team and at least read enough to answer the question of how the rocks are moving so you and others wouldn't have to click the link.

    3. Re:From TFA: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's the digested version of the actual article in PLOS One, which isn't paywalled.

      One of the coolest parts is the way they instrumented "test rocks" with GPS that could stay powered for very long durations (months/years) from a small battery because of how intermittent the movement is and how remote the location is. The trick was not to engauge the GPS data logging until a magnetic switch was tripped when the rock moved. The magnet was set in the floor of the playa lake, the switch in a hole bored in the rock that also contained the GPS receiver. The instrumented rocks were brought in for the experiment and behaved the same as the natural ones on the site.

    4. Re:From TFA: by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I for one am glad that you did. The site the article calls home purley sucks. I'm on my phone and when you make the text large enough to read, a flash menu and a bunch of social networking crap floods the page so you can only see two words in a line.

  2. Now for the History Channel's documentary: by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1
    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  3. The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's what they used to be called. No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the Universe, or very nearly. And they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defense system ever evolved. They are Quantum Locked. They don't exist when they are being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature they freeze into rock. No choice, it's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn into stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away. Then you blink. Then, oh yes, it can.

    1. Re: The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      IMHO the most terrifying Dr Who monster ever.

    2. Re:The Lonely Assassins by smooth+wombat · · Score: 2

      The only issue I had with the Weeping Angels is the part about them not moving so long as they are seen by any living creatures.

      It would seem that birds, mice, rats, squirrels, etc would qualify as living creatures so when Rory and Amy were sent away, how could the last Angel have moved when presumably some other creatures was watching it?

      It's one thing if you're in a building (or cave where the only route out is up) where, presumably, you are the only creature able to see them, but outside is another matter.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    3. Re:The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never understood why those weeping angels didn't attack from above. They always want to get right in your face. You say (in your quote) that a stone can't kill you. But that is just wrong. Attack from above. They look up in the sky and see a bird, a plane, oh holy shit a statue falling on them. That stone sure as heck can kill you - even at substantially less than terminal velocity.

    4. Re:The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can't feed on a corpse, since it has no remaining "timey-wimey".

    5. Re:The Lonely Assassins by mrbester · · Score: 1

      Maybe something wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey about insects not living very long in the first place so there's no point using all that energy sending them back in time to live to death. Or it's a sentience thing.

      Either way, I most certainly can kill a stone. I can smash it to bits with a hammer. Maybe even a *rock* hammer. I don't see anything coming back to life after it has been shattered into tiny pieces apart from a T1000 / Crichton and Aeryn.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    6. Re:The Lonely Assassins by geekoid · · Score: 1

      You just made a stone with friends, you killed nothing.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:The Lonely Assassins by LduN · · Score: 1

      stones are heavy, when they can get glimpsed they will fall to the earth and presumably shatter. the risk far outweighs to potential benefits.

    8. Re:The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't look up, and you're instantaneously sent back, they'd feed before they could kill you. If, however, you look up, then yes, you'd be crush to death, but at least you'd die in your time.

    9. Re: The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can put a sea sponge in a blender, and blitz it. It'll still reform and live.

    10. Re:The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The worst part would be if you assume each has the time energy draining power, and now you have to keep eyes on each of the smaller pieces.

    11. Re: The Lonely Assassins by lgw · · Score: 1

      Not after I throw the bits of statue into the sea, then just to be safe throw the planet into the Sun, and then throw the Sun into a black hole. It's like you've never played D&D, or something..

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    12. Re:The Lonely Assassins by Livius · · Score: 1

      Sure you can kill a stone. Enough heat and it melts, or just shatter it.

      Unfortunately, I suspect Weeping Angels aren't actually stone in the geological sense.

    13. Re:The Lonely Assassins by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      The issue I had was when they brought the Weeping Angels back for another episode and ruined the whole thing.

    14. Re: The Lonely Assassins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, The Silence are more insidious.

    15. Re:The Lonely Assassins by zeugma-amp · · Score: 1

      The only issue I had with the Weeping Angels is the part about them not moving so long as they are seen by any living creatures.

      It would seem that birds, mice, rats, squirrels, etc would qualify as living creatures so when Rory and Amy were sent away, how could the last Angel have moved when presumably some other creatures was watching it?

      Then there is the episode where the Statue of Liberty was a Weeping Angel. Are they really trying to say that noone was looking at it for long enough for it to swim across to land, and walk to where Rory and Amy were? The concept of the angels was cool, and the "Blink" episode is one of my favorites, but sometimes writers don't know when to stop.

      --
      This is an ex-parrot!
  4. timothy = fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    This was reported *5 years ago* in National Geographic. Pull your head out of your rear and read some paper.

    1. Re:timothy = fail by 14erCleaner · · Score: 1

      The reported video is from 2013, so NatGeo must have been reporting something else.

      --
      Have you read my blog lately?
    2. Re: timothy = fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This was reported *5 years ago* in National Geographic. Pull your head out of your rear and read some paper.

      Except what was reported in NG was yet another theory that turned out not to be correct. This time there is documented evidence of the rocks in action.

    3. Re:timothy = fail by Russ1642 · · Score: 1

      Didn't know National Geographic had a time machine.

    4. Re: timothy = fail by mrbester · · Score: 1

      As distinct from the usual rocks inaction.

      I'll get me coat...

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    5. Re: timothy = fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Documentation of the rocks' motion is still not proof of anything, except that the rocks did in-fact move. The underlying cause is still just theory, and could be just as incorrect as any other theory.

  5. FYI: Video is not viewable in Canada by denis-The-menace · · Score: 1

    can someone post it someplace else?

    --
    Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
    1. Re:FYI: Video is not viewable in Canada by Russ1642 · · Score: 2

      I'm in Canada and it worked fine for me, even with the IE 8 I have access to at work.

    2. Re:FYI: Video is not viewable in Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a long (6:15) explanation including footage of rocks moving. Here's just a short timelapse vid of a rock moving. This one features a whiteboard demonstration of the principles at work. They're all on the Racetrack Playa YouTube channel.

      (AC to preserve mods)

  6. I might've heard of these guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What kind of music do the Sailing Stones play?

    1. Re:I might've heard of these guys by timrod · · Score: 3, Funny

      They used to be a rock band back in the 70s, but lost their magnum opus - "Come Sail Away" - in a scandal involving the theft of their lyric sheets by Styx during their joint "Can't Break my Bones" tour. Their lead singer decided that rock and roll was too corporate and went solo, last I heard he does some kinda crazy Burning Man shit where he gets naked in a mud field and records the sound the wind makes in different places. The rest of them made a comeback tour in the 90s, but had their comeback hit, song called "Can't Stop the Rock" stolen by some asshole. Nowadays, I think they're still cranking out indie albums under their own label because they're sick of all the posers stealing their music.

  7. its worth putting this into perspective. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    as a member of the illuminati im disheartened to see this. We'd gone to great lengths to insist to the public these rocks were being moved in order to control the ghost of ronald reagan in a hideous plot to destroy the secret bald eagle buried in the head of the lincoln statue that funds "president" obamas fema death camps. when does this inquisition stop? the secret transciever in your left molar has made it explicitly clear that under no circumstance were you to question the rocks. Next thing you know, people are going to start asking about chem trails and how they always make sure gary busey eats exactly one almond joy candy before meeting with the council of serpents to steal painted lines from the roads through the mojave desert that planned the shariah law anchor baby abortions after the covert resurrection of sadam hussein.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:its worth putting this into perspective. by largoyle7493 · · Score: 1

      Needs a "satire" tag as this is not weird enough to be real.

    2. Re:its worth putting this into perspective. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's OK. It's been well known for a long time that Illuminati are just a bunch of cretins anyway.

    3. Re:its worth putting this into perspective. by h5inz · · Score: 1

      Recently they discovered an essential clue about our secret plans - that dogs poop in accordance to earths magnetic field. So we will have to stop them before it's too late. I insist on placing our secret persuadetron chips into birth control products and antipsychotic pills.

  8. Stop the madness!!! by CaptainDork · · Score: 0

    A movement is underway to stop bitches like these from applying the scientific method.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:Stop the madness!!! by Cragen · · Score: 1

      Better yet. Some guy calling himself a "scientist", in the WaPo Comments here to a similar article with this conclusion: " the perfect alignment of variables that must all fall into place for this explanation to work is virtually impossible on the regular basis required to satisfy the frequency of the event. There is a different reason; they don not know what it is."

      When I was young, many years ago, I thought ignorance could be overcome by education. Now, some 60+ years later, I begin to think that is not the case. /sigh

    2. Re:Stop the madness!!! by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      It HAS to be satire, mocking the parallel argument provided by intelligent design advocates who take the same position in an effort to validate the creation myth.

      No one that literate can be that stupid.

      Can they?

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  9. Re:timothy = fail/Re:The Lonely Assassins by skatull · · Score: 0

    Obviously the Weeping Angels stole the Tardis at the behest of The National Geographic Society.

  10. From TFA: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    If they're as slow as my internet connection, it's little wonder it was a mystery for so long!

  11. Nobel to be returned by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    There goes my Intelligent Sliding theory. Now how am I gonna get chicks?

    1. Re:Nobel to be returned by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      I don't know. My intelligence kind of goes away when my dick is sliding in something.

  12. rerun by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    This was also filmed with long term cameras and shown on the discovery and history channels by multiple people years and years and years ago.

  13. Please. . . by UnknowingFool · · Score: 0

    We all know these rocks were created in a sound stage by Kubrick and Lee Harvey Oswald to further the agenda of the Kenyan-born communist Obama in the teaching children the "maths".

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  14. Finally. by Snufu · · Score: 1

    Irrefutable evidence that wind and water have the capability to move bits of earth. I am going to copyright a term for this mechanism: "Erosion" (TM).

    JK. I think the footage is neato.

  15. They don't make rocks like they used to by m_chan · · Score: 1

    I liked it when rocks took thousands of years to be nudged around by hunks of ice. These new rocks are pushovers.