[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: Nathan Alexander, Wikipedia]

[null and void]

You rock!

[doc1019]

And what does this have to do with Astronomy? I enjoy the “Astronomy Picture of the Day” greatly, however ...

[U-238]

Did you know that Death Valley is sinking? The valley has been sinking about 1/2 in per year.In relation to the valley, the Black Mountains under you are movng to your left as well as rising. The eroding mountains fill the valley at about the same rate as it sinks.

[umgud]

Unfortunately, as frequently happens in science, a seemingly surreal problem ends up having a relatively mundane solution. It turns out that high winds after a rain can push even heavy rocks across a temporarily slick lakebed.

Don't have an answer, but I'm not buying that wind pushed a 660 pound rock.

[aruanan]

It turns out that high winds after a rain can push even heavy rocks across a temporarily slick lakebed.

Once they're moving, but what gets them unstuck to begin with?

[aruanan]

From the Conclusion in the dissertation (emphasis added):

Despite the extensive work conducted most notably by Kirk (1952), Stanley (1955), Sharp and Carey (1976) and by Reid et al. (1995) the causative conditions promoting the sliding rocks’ motions remain unclear.

At the outset this project was conceived and designed in hopes of revealing predictable order in the sliding rock trails. The patterns have been successfully captured for the first time to high accuracy standards, and they do indeed show general trends. Yet the degree of chaotic motion implied by the furrows, and the insignificant correlations of rock and trail parameters, are remarkable. Perhaps the most surprising outcome of this research is the unanticipated lack of order in this natural system. Countless efforts to establish statistically significant relationships between rocks, trails and terrain characteristics yielded disappointing results.

[Blogatron]

It’s the flying rocks you have to watch out for.