The sailing stones, also referred to as sliding rocks or moving rocks, are a geological phenomenon found in Racetrack Playa, Death Valley.
The stones are assumed to slowly move across the surface of the playa, inferred from the long tracks behind them, without human or animal intervention. They have neither been seen nor filmed in motion and are not unique to Racetrack.
Similar rock travel patterns have been recorded in several other playas in the region but the number and length of travel grooves on The Racetrack are notable.
Racetrack stones only move once every two or three years and most tracks last for just three or four years. Stones with rough undersides leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth undersides wander.
Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different-sized track in the stone's wake.
Most of the so-called gliding stones originate from an 850 foot high hillside made of dark dolomite on the south end of the playa, but some are intrusive igneous rock from adjacent slopes.
Tracks are often tens to hundreds of feet long, 3 to 12 inches wide, and typically much less than an inch deep.
Geologists Jim McAllister and Allen Agnew mapped the bedrock of the area in 1948 and made note of the tracks. Naturalists from the National Park Service later wrote more detailed descriptions and Life magazine featured a set of photographs from The Racetrack.
Speculation about how the stones may move started at this time. Various and sometimes idiosyncratic possible explanations have been put forward over the years that have ranged from the supernatural to the very complex.
Most hypotheses favored by interested geologists posit that strong winds when the mud is wet are at least in part responsible, however some stones weigh as much as a human, which some researchers such as geologist George M. Stanley who published a paper on the topic in 1955 feel is too heavy for the area's wind to move.
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Bravo
I remember reading about this in the eighties, good to see it is as yet unsolved.
I have no idea how this might be happening
david hobbs
I just love the idea of this kind of unsolved phenomena.
I wonder if very much research has been carried out in the region.
Raymond
This is the kind of stuff I'd like to throw at twats like Jon Pennis because his usual narrow-minded rhetoric wouldn't even begin to get close to explaining something like this.
I meant I'd like to throw the story at him, not the rocks.
