'Wandering stones' of Death Valley explained

nature ^ | 27 August 2014

[Brother Cracker]

Video at source

[Candor7]

Ping to Geological mystery solved?

[colorado tanker]

Slippery rock ping.

[Berlin_Freeper]

'Wandering stones' of Death Valley

[ozzymandus]

They’re called turtles!

[Brother Cracker]

http://www.agencytool.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/rollingrock.jpg

[NormsRevenge]

Is there a ‘turtles’ group?

That would be exciting..

Waiting for a freeze and good winds..
Just like ice fishing..

Ya NVR know what yur gonna catch

[Brother Cracker]

http://wildlife.utah.gov/pdf/dt_adopt.pdf

[PapaNew]

Cool stuff (in a very hot place). :-)

[RedMDer]

Please Contribute Today!

Woo hoo!!
Less than $5.3k to Go!
We can do this!!
FReepers ROCK!!

[Fred Nerks]

I don't believe it. The depth of the impression left behind suggests the rock is far too heavy to have been pushed by wind.

Reminds me of the unexplained spirals and lines all over the dry lakebed of Vernuekpan in South Africa:

I do love a good mystery!

[Candor7]

Its swamp gas!

I also am a skeptic of the ice theory.

[Brother Cracker]

wind blows car away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-qn5aPEQyk

[Fred Nerks]

Your video shows the result of a TYPHOON.

[Brother Cracker]

Are you implying there are no typhoons in death Valley?

[Mmogamer]

Aye strong wind can move very heavy objects.. with surface volume. Rocks have very little area on which to push.

[Brother Cracker]

yeah, so what about rocks on ice?

[Larry Lucido]

Okay, it is Stones or Turtles? Let's make up our minds.

[Yardstick]

Well, it’s not the rock itself that’s pushed by the wind but broken up sheets of ice. The flat ice pieces push the rocks along, or the rocks are embedded in them and scrape along the ground as the ice pieces are blown along. In other words the ice pieces sort of act like sails for the rocks.

Something else to keep in mind is that when this happens the ground is probably wet, not dry as in the pic. I know from experience that the ground out there turns into a slippery mud when it’s wet. This would act to lubricate the path that the rock moves along. Their theory seems plausible to me.

[Fred Nerks]

I’m implying nothing.
A motor vehicle being blown along the street by a typhoon, hurricane or tornado isn’t a very good example imo.