Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Since their first description in 1948, large rocks up to 320 kg have been seen being moved across Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, leaving unique paths in their wake. The physics of this rock movement, thought to be caused by wind on a wet and slick playa surface, has been a matter of continued discussion for years despite the observation of ...
Sailing stones (also called sliding rocks, walking rocks, rolling stones, and moving rocks) are part of the geological phenomenon in which rocks move and inscribe long tracks along a smooth valley floor without animal intervention. The movement of the rocks occurs when large, thin sheets of ice floating on an ephemeral winter pond move and ...
As with the rest of Death Valley National Park, The Racetrack and The Grandstand receive very scant rainfall, rarely more than 2 inches in most years. Due to its elevation of 3,000-foot (910 m), the climate at The Grandstand averages slightly cooler than that of the floor of Death Valley; however, daytime high temperatures are commonly above ...
Death Valley is the fifth-largest American national park and the largest in the contiguous United States. It is also larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, and nearly as large as Puerto Rico. [10] In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association. [11]
The driest place in North America and the hottest on Earth, Death Valley is a long and narrow basin 282 feet (86 m) below sea level and yet it is walled up with rather steep mountain ranges ...
Racetrack Playa is a seasonally dry lake (playa) located in the northern part of the Panamint Mountains that is famous for rocks that mysteriously move across its surface. During periods of heavy rain, water washes down from nearby mountain slopes onto the playa, forming a shallow, short-lived lake.
Little is known about the history of the oldest exposed rocks in the area due to extensive metamorphism.This somber, gray, almost featureless crystalline complex is composed of originally sedimentary and igneous rocks with large quantities of quartz and feldspar mixed in. [1] The original rocks were transformed to contorted schist and gneiss, making their original parentage almost unrecognizable.
Discover the latest breaking news in the U.S. and around the world — politics, weather, entertainment, lifestyle, finance, sports and much more.