Sailing Stones

Sailing on the Racetrack: Stones in Flight

Death Valley National Park, located in and on the border of Nevada and California, is a location of impressive geological and climatic phenomena, ranging from the lowest point in the continental United States and North America (Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level), to the hottest recorded temperature on Earth (134 degrees on July 10, 1913). However, the Park is also home to a decidedly more peculiar type of phenomena-the Sailing Stones of Racetrack Playa.

While geological variation and climatic extremes are explainable and lack mystery, the Sailing Stones have traditionally defied explanation. Scattered throughout the Racetrack Playa (dry lake bed), these rocks somehow silently and extremely slowly glide across the bed, leaving behind them trails of disturbed sediment sometimes hundreds of feet long. The question immediately brought up by all who observe the rocks and their individual trails is “How is this possible?” Intervention by humans or weather are inadequate explanations, given decades of documentation and extremely low rainfall in the Park.

From the magical worldview, the rocks would’ve seemed divinely ordained to move in random, seemingly haphazard directions. Perhaps the rocks, being of earthly materials, were in sympathy with the ground since both are hard and of the same, muted color. Ultimately, the latest scientific viewpoint contends that the rocks move by a phenomena called “ice shove”. Essentially, thin ice sheets form on the dried river bed on breezy, sunny days and propel the rocks forward at a glacial pace-only a few minutes out of every million.

Regrettably, insensitive tourist-photographers have repeatedly desecrated the fragile soil and moved some of the rocks while trampling the paths of others. While speculative, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine that if people with magical worldviews were to observe the rocks, believing that they lived within a divinely integrated and purposefully endowed cosmos, they would treat them with a reverential caution, rather than blindly displacing them and their magical trails.

Resources:

Information on Death Valley's lowest point:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/22012/quick-10-10-extreme-points-united-states

Information on hottest recorded temperature:

https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/death-valley-extreme-heat

Information on Sailing Stones:

http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks.shtml

Information on Scientific Explanation:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-28989520

Information on Desecration of Rocks:

https://digital-photography-school.com/is-visiting-the-racetrack-playa-in-death-valley-worth-it/

1'st and 2'nd Photos:

https://weather.com/sports-recreation/camping-parks/news/death-valley-sailing-stones

3'rd and 4'th Photos:

http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks.shtml

5'th Photo:

https://weather.com/sports-recreation/camping-parks/news/death-valley-sailing-stones