Sliding Stones, Racetrack Playa, California
Sliding stones, Racetrack Playa, California ROBERT P. SHARP Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 DWIGHT L. CAREY Department of Geology, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024 ABSTRACT 1952a, 1952b; R. E. Kirk, 1953; Shelton, any other playa. Some immutable law of 1953; Stanley, 1955; Schumm, 1956; Clem- nature probably prescribes that movements Twenty-eight of 30 monitored stones on ents, 1958; W. E. Sharp, 1960; Creutz, occur in the darkness of stormy moonless the southern part of Racetrack Playa moved 1962; Bradley, 1963; Findley, 1970). This nights, so that even a resident observer within a seven-yr interval, leaving distinct playa is not unique, as stone tracks have would see newly made tracks only in the tracks. Movements occurred principally been reliably reported on at least eight dawn of a new day. Tracks made by objects during the winters of 1968-1969, 1972- other dry lakes in southeastern California moved by other mechanisms in different 1973, and 1973-1974. Some stones moved and adjacent Nevada (Table 1). However, geological settings contribute little to the in all three episodes, some only in one or Racetrack Playa is distinguished by the playa-track problem (Sainsbury, 1956; Di two, and a few on other occasions. Move- great number and large size of stones and Cesare and Pratelli, 1967; Hattersley- ment is clearly related to wet stormy an abundance of tracks. Smith, 1969, p. 45; Dionne, 1969). The weather. We realized in April of 1968 that no sys- moving stones and their tracks are hardly Greatest cumulative movement, 262 m, tematic observation of stone movements matters of greatest scientific import, but and greatest single-episode movement, 201 was being maintained, and so permission broad interest in this curious phenomenon m, were by a small, 250-g stone.
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