[meteorite-list] Why Are Death Valley's Rocks Moving Themselves? --not off-topic at all!

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:28:12 +0100
Message-ID: <003701cbd112$c93f5aa0$5bbe0fe0$_at_de>

Hi there,

haven't followed the whole thread,
therefore sorry if it's a double post,
here is an article about moving rocks on Planet Mars:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/jan7-09/martianrock

Best!
Martin









PS:
Currently camping next to a promising rock, looking like a meteorite, in
desert, waiting for it to trespass an imaginary line, from where on it will
immediately lose its status as a natural heritage and its cultural
properties.
I have no incentive to announce it to the authorities, although it looks
like ALH 84001, but has fresher fusion crust, because they will declare it
to be property of the state. And they even won't give me back the dime for
the phone call. Anyway, it would cause only troubles.
So I wait... come to papa... and if it doesn't come... who cares.


It's a strange thing, with that heritage and culture and the national
importance.
I'm born in the country, where Ernst Florens once invented the meteorites at
all.
72 entries we have in the Bulletin, quite the same like Argentina or Canada,
much more than Slovakia or Denmark. And seen surface and time, we even left
Australia behind.
In the neighbor state, Schreibers invented modern meteoritics.
We both have no meteorite law!!! Eeek! How can this be possible - a true
scandal!!

(I know, I know an useless argument. In Australia, Oman, Argentina..nobody
knows, who Ernst Florens and Carl von was.)




-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von G?ran
Axelsson
Gesendet: Sonntag, 20. Februar 2011 13:35
An: Meteorite List
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Why Are Death Valley's Rocks Moving
Themselves? --not off-topic at all!

If I might make a guess here....

The area is covered under a thin layer of water, not enough to cover the
rocks. Then the temperature drops, forming a thin layer of ice, trapping
the rocks. Then it doesn't need a lot of wind to drag along an ice sheet
with frosen in rocks. As the rocks is still protruding from the ice, it
forms tracks in the underlying surface.
If more than one rock is trapped in the ice, then they will form
parallel tracks, turning at the same time if the wind direction shifts.

I've seen the tremendous force a loose ice sheet and a modest wind can
achieve. Many years ago in spring I was at our cabin near a lake. The
weather had been warm and calm so the ice sheet of the lake (3 km x 1 km
big) was thawed a couple of meters around the edges. Then it started to
blow straight towards us and the ice started to move. First slowly,
hardly noticeable, then it started to creep up onto the beach. When it
started I stood at the edge of the water but after fifteen minutes I had
been pushed over a meter back by the ice and along the beach was a half
meter wall of ice. Then it all stopped and I've never experienced it
again, but I've seen the wall of ice deposited along beaches a couple of
times since then.

/G?ran
Received on Sun 20 Feb 2011 10:28:12 AM PST