Death Valley and moving the stones

Covering an area equal to 3.3 million acres, Death Valley (Death Valley) is the largest park in the United States and neighboring countries. From the West Death Valley props mountain peak Telescope (Telescope Peak), ascended to an altitude of 11,049 feet. And in the East Valley rests in the foothills of Mount View Dantez (Dante's View), with a height of 5.475 feet of stunning views of almost the entire valley. Death Valley - is primarily a dramatic desert flavor - unusual wild, pristine nature and magnificent landscape which are of geological, historical and artistic interest to researchers and tourists. The lowest point of the Western Hemisphere (Western Hemisphere) - Bedvoter (Badwater) is located on 282 feet below sea level.


Death Valley National Park USA, located in eastern California, almost on the border with Nevada and is the lowest (at 86 meters below sea level) in the Western Hemisphere and the hottest place on Earth. Prior to her about three hours' drive from Los Angeles. In the southern part of Death Valley is flat, flat clay plain - the bottom of the dry lake Racetrack Playa, - which is called the Valley of moving stones (Racetrack Playa). According to a phenomenon encountered in this area - "self-propelled" kamnyam.



Something weird is going on in the Valley of Death. Huge boulders themselves crawling along the bottom of a dry lake. These no one touches, and they creep and crawl. No one saw them move. Yet they stubbornly creeping, if alive, occasionally flipping from side to side, leaving a trail stretching for tens of meters. What should these stones? Where they crawl? Why?




Blue-stone - the legendary boulder, located near the village of Ancient city under Pereslavl. According to the ancient Russian tradition, this rock lives a spirit, fulfilling dreams and desires. At the beginning of XVII century the church came into the fight with the pagan religion. Pereslavl church deacon Semyonov Annufriy ordered to dig a big hole and throw it Hsin-stone. But after a few years the boulder mysteriously looked out from under the ground. After 150 years, the ecclesiastical authorities decided to lay Pereslavl "magic" stone of the foundation of the local bell tower. Stone was loaded onto the sled and drove across the ice of Lake Pleshcheeva. The ice broke, and Hsin-stone sank at a depth of five meters. Soon the fishermen began to notice that the boulder slowly "mixed" on the bottom. After half a century, he was on the shore at the foot of the mountain Yarili-term, and where is still ... This and similar stones and make a puzzle to scientists, over which they are fighting in vain for decades. What has been suggested in this regard? Mystics say that there is nothing to think about - in the "wandering stones" live otherworldly suschnosti.





Clay bottom Reystrek Playa dry most of the time, and nothing on it is not growing. It is covered almost uniform pattern of cracks forming irregular hexagonal cells. But there is something else, is much more interesting. At the bottom of the stones lying around - hefty chunks weighing up to thirty kilos. But in fact they are still there: sometimes they move, leaving behind on the ground, shallow (no more than a few centimeters), but very long (up to several tens of meters) borozdy.Poka, however, the movement of these stones still nobody saw and I did not take off on film. But the fact that the stones are moved, no doubt - furrows extend substantially from each of them. This is not the work of individuals or other extremities some other animals. None of this strange pastime were caught not (at least so far), since no one of these fragments are not needed - to people or even more animals. For a while there was only logical assumption is that crawl stones sily.Odnako supernatural force at the beginning of XX century showed up out of nowhere, and scientists say that the cause of the mysterious movement - in some magnetic fields. This version does not have anything to do with reality, and nothing really explained. However, it is not surprising: the electromagnetic picture of the world at that time still reigned in science ... The first scientific papers describing the trajectories of stones appeared in the late 1940's -1950's. It did not help identify the nature of the movement: everything that could do the researchers - is to come up with a lot of new hypotheses, and some of them were very difficult. In any case, scientists have almost unanimously claimed that this strange phenomenon is associated with a storm of rain that occasionally happen in Death Valley, and following them all the way floods and that this svyazano.Bolshinstvo concepts on the movement of the stones (as they just do not called: traveling, crawling, swimming, moving, moving, dancing ... without the Rolling Stones still cost) converge on some common points. So the researchers were able to identify a number of factors, which are clearly facilitating the movement glyb.Pervy factor - it is a slippery foundation under a stone, to put it simply, dirt. In support of this argument indicates at least trace form. Tracks that reserve the stones have a clear shape with smooth edges, and therefore the ground was soft at first and then zastyla.No slippery foundation - it's only condition for mobility. A major factor, due to which the movement starts - is the wind that pushes the stones lying on the slimy mud. However, the thought about the wind kept if not all. For example, a geologist George Stanley (George M. Stanley) from the University of Michigan (University of Michigan) in it not a bit believe, basing his opinion that the stones are too heavy to be able to move air masses. It is suggested that the wind pushed not the stones, and more, and chunks of ice, growing on boulders, and play the role of a kind of sails, increasing the area of ​​contact with the atmosphere. At the same time it was assumed that the ice facilitates sliding through the mud. In addition, there were more reasons that could move the stones to influence earthquake. However, this conjecture rather quickly rejected because the seismic activity is enhanced in the area is extremely rare, besides it is very weak, in order to demonstrate such an effect. It has more many years when, after a walk through the Valley of Death Paul Messina (Paula Messina), current professor at the University of San Jose (San José State University), in 1993, terribly interested in stones that she preferred to call dancing. Yes, so interested that became hard to learn all atmospheric and geological matter at the bottom Reystrek Playa. And in the end, he has built from his research thesis the whole! To those results to which it came to his work, could not come earlier researchers, for Paul to use her capabilities of GPS, tracking the position of the stones with an accuracy of a few centimeters. She found that in general, the stones do not move in parallel. In her opinion, this confirms the fact that the ice is not relevant to the case. In addition, studying the change of coordinates as much as 162 boulders, she realized that the sliding boulders affect neither their size nor their forma.Zato it became clear that the movement depends on what part of the Playa Reystrek they are. According to the model created by the researcher, the wind over the lake behaves very complicated way. After the storm, it is divided into two streams, which is associated with the peculiarities of the geometry of the mountains surrounding Reystrek Playa. Because of this, the stones are localized in different parts of the lake, move in different and substantially perpendicular directions. And in the center of the winds collide and twist in a mini-tornado, causing also turn and kamni.Interesno that in the process of moving the stones shifted significantly, falling under the action of one or the other of the wind, the general - falling into the vortex in tsentre. < br />
However, despite the fact that almost every year, Professor Messina studying the location of stones, and she can not answer a number of difficult issues.
Why are some stones moved, while others are in place? Whether this is due to the fact that after the disappearance of water in some places the ground is drier than in others? Why stones "scattered" across the bottom of the lake, while the result of such regular winds directed almost always the same, the majority of blocks to be one of the edges? Whether this is due to the fact that the stones somehow "return" them back or they simply take what some people?