[Rockhounds] Death Valley's Racing Rocks

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

John,

As I read it, the wind pushes sheets of ice across the shallow lakebed.
When they hit the rounded rocks the ice would slide part way under the
rocks and push them across the mud in the water under the ice. It would
be much easier to get the rocks unstuck and moving if the ice tipped
them up just a bit. You are right, I should have said the lake moves
instead of the lakebed.

Kreigh


John Siebel wrote:
> 
> Interesting site - bookmarked for further perusal. Although this video
> doesn't say that the lake bed moves. It says that a combination of wind,
> water and ice push the rocks along the surface. Or am I missing something?
> 
> John
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kreigh Tomaszewski" <Kreigh at tomaszewski.net>
> To: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors"
> <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 4:10 PM
> Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Death Valley's Racing Rocks
> 
> > John Siebel wrote:
> >>
> >> Rather weird!
> >> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/04/TRCAT0IV2.DTL
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >
> > Scientific American covered this a couple years ago and thought the
> > cause was wind. Looking for the article online was unsuccessful, but I
> > found a newer explanation that makes sense. The lakebed moves under the
> > rocks
> >
> > http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4021
> >