We may have heard lot of strange and mysterious details about aliens, UFO, places, things, or even about ghost but in this case it is about some stones. Yes, these stones which are scattered in the desert moves on their own and leaves mysterious trails behind them with no explanation. The stones can be from a few hundred grams to hundreds of kilograms. It is a geological phenomenon and this interesting mystery baffled scientists for years since the early 1900s.
These stones are called the sailing stones and they are also known as sliding rocks, walking rocks, rolling stones, and moving rocks. The natural event was first observed in 1915 by prospector Joseph Crook from Nevada when he visited the Racetrack Playa site. They are observed and studied in various locations including Little Bonnie Claire Playa, in Nevada and at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, California.
Death Valley which is Famously known for being the hottest place on earth, also has the most notable trails and tracks of these stones. The Racetrack Playa in death valley was once a lake and it completely got evaporated due to climate change that happened over thousands of years. It receives only little rain each year and the erosion of the surrounding mountains causes rocks and stones of all different sizes to fall to the surface of it. These stones are composed of dolomite and syenite, the same materials that make up the surrounding mountains.
So what is the reason for these stones to move of its own?
In 2006 NASA scientist Ralph Lorenz put forward his hypothesis about these sailing stones. Later in 2011, Richard and his cousins Jim Norris along with co-author Jib Ray set up “Slithering Stones Research Initiative”. As the stones won’t move for decades sometimes, they attached GPS devices on the stones to study it. Unexpectedly in December 2013, the stones started moving and they caught it on camera. Their observations showed that the sailing stones requires a rare combination of events and they are the result of a perfect balance of ice, water, wind and weather condition.
Ralph Lorenz 
Sailing stone with a GPS
When it rains, the playa fills with water and thin sheets of floating ice can form during cold winter nights. During the day when the temperature raises, the sheets of ice begins to melt under the sun. These sheets breaks up into large panels and moves or shifts even with light winds. This in turn pushes whatever rocks are in front of them that leaves trails in the soft mud below the surface. The surprising fact is that the thickness of the ice sheet was merely 2mm to 5mm and the rocks moved even under the light winds of about 3-5 m per second (10 miles per hour). When the ice evaporates and the playa dries out, you can see the rock and the evidence of how far it has moved.
Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while stones with smooth bottoms tend to wander. Some of the stones weigh more than 300 kg and they have left behind trails of more than 1000 feet from their original location.
Though the mystery has been solved, people are still intrigued to visit this place. Who knows? May be sometimes they could see one in motion!
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Credits :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_Playa
https://www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/sailing-stones-death-valley
https://www.livescience.com/37492-sailing-stones-death-valley-moving-rocks.html
http://www.sci-news.com/physics/science-death-valley-sailing-stones-02148.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-do-death-valleys-sailing-stones-move-themselves-across-the-desert-98287558/
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-are-sailing-stones
https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/death-valley-sailing-stones
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/mystery-solved-sailing-stones-death-valley-seen-action-first-time
https://earthsky.org/earth/death-valley-sliding-slithering-sailing-stone-mystery-solved
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-sailing-stones-of-racetrack-playa-inyo-california
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mystery-death-valleys-sailing-stones-solved/story?id=25160155
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/nasa-explains-mysterious-sailing-stones-that-move-around-death-valley-on-their-own/news-story/0d9d0133c0636bb203b363060aae2c0c
https://time.com/3210582/sailing-stones-death-valley-solved/
https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/28/6079445/the-mystery-of-death-valleys-sailing-stones-has-been-solved
https://www.cnet.com/news/stimulus-check-status-update-plus-up-payment-arrival-dates-problems-irs-delivery/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0105948 – Journal
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/11386335/nasa-explains-sailing-stones-mystery-photo/
https://www.sciencealert.com/there-were-sailing-stones-scudding-across-the-mud-200-million-years-ago
https://www.brut.media/us/science-and-technology/sailing-stones-of-racetrack-playa-a-mysterious-phenomenon-819172af-fecd-45eb-b32a-58527789b6d1
https://science.nasa.gov/sailing-stone-across-death-valley
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30068068?seq=1 – Journal
https://petrosains.com.my/wonderblog/mystery-of-the-moving-sailing-stones/
https://sos.noaa.gov/education/phenomenon-based-learning/sailing-stones/
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Image from Norris R, Norris J, Lorenz R, Ray J, Jackson B (2014) from Wikimedia.
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