Wind-blown Rocks and Trails on a Dry Lake Bed: An Alternative Hypothesis

Three decades of weather records at meteorological stations near Death Valley National Park are analyzed in an attempt to gauge the frequency of conditions that might form and erase the famous trails of wind-blown rocks in the mud of Racetrack Playa. Trail formation requires the playa to be wet, followed by strong winds and/or freezing conditions. Weather records are compared with a limited set of meteorological data that were acquired in situ at the playa over three winters and that indicate freezing on 50, 29, and 15 nights during the winters of 2007/08-09/10, respectively, as well as with the hydrological condition of the playa as determined by time-lapse cameras that observed flooding over ;1, ;5, and ;40 days, respectively, during those winters. Measurements at the nearby Panamint and Hunter Mountain stations are found to be a useful, if imperfect (;50%), indicator of Racetrack Playa conditions and give some features of Racetrack Playa's micrometeorological behavior. Wind speed probability distributions suggest that winds that are fast enough to cause unassisted rock motion are rare and therefore that freezing of water on the playa has a role in a significant fraction of movement events.

show abstract

A Miniscule System of a ‘Sailing Rock’

Schoenemann¹

2016

J Geol Geophys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wind-blown Rocks and Trails on a Dry Lake Bed: An Alternative Hypothesis

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Sliding stones of Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, USA: The roles of rock thermal conductivity and fluctuating water levels

Sliding stones of Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, USA: The roles of rock thermal conductivity and fluctuating water levels

Meteorological Conditions at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park: Implications for Rock Production and Transport

A Miniscule System of a ‘Sailing Rock’

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About