Why Are Rocks Moving Across The Death Valley?

Among the most fascinating mysteries of Death Valley National Park are its sliding rocks located in Racetrack Playa. These boulders can be found on the playa’s floor with long trails which is behind them. Someway these stones slide across the playa, wounding in the sediment as they transfer. No one exactly knows how these rocks move although a few people have proposed some good explanations regarding this. As we all know, Racetrack Playa is a kind of lake bed that is perfectly flat and always dry. Its surface is enclosed with mud racks and sediments are made up mostly of clay and silt. The area’s climate is dry and rains just a couple of inches each year. When the rain pours, steep mountains surrounding the Racetrack Playa produce a large quantity of runoff which converts the floor of playa into a wide shallow lake. When it’s wet, the surface is converted into slippery and soft mud.

moving rocks
NASA Goddard Photo and Video/Flickr/Creative Commons
moving rocks
wikimedia Commons/Daniel Mayer

Are the rocks moved by animals or people?

The shape of traces behind the boulders recommends that the rocks move when the Racetrack Playa’s floor is covered with a soft mud.

moving rocks
Wikimedia Commons/Tahoenathan

Are the rocks moved by wind?

This is one of the favorite explanations that were made. The prevailing winds which blows across Racetrack Playa travelling from southwest to northeast. Many of the trails of the rock are equivalent to this direction. People are asking: Why is it that rocks are moving across the Death Valley? Is it the aliens, supernatural power of humans that cannot perceive or a strange squall of wind that makes disorder just right? What precisely makes the large rocks move? Here are suggested explanations that can be useful to you in explaining why rocks move.

moving rocks
Lauri Vain/Flickr/Creative Commons

Heavy elating. Certain of rocks weigh more than six hundred pounds.

moving rocks
marc kjerland/Flickr/Creative Commons

Hoax of the eye?

The rocks move but it moves very slowly. Scientists have been tracking and studying its movement for eras.

moving rocks
NASA Goddard Photo and Video/Flickr/Creative Commons