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Moving Rocks of Racetrack Playa (Death Valley, USA)

Deep in the heart of the California desert lies one of the natural world's most puzzling mysteries: the moving rocks of Death Valley. These are not ordinary moving rocks that tumble down mountainsides in avalanches, are carried along riverbeds by flowing water, or are tossed aside by animals. These rocks, some as heavy as 700 pounds, are inexplicably transported across a virtually flat desert plain, leaving erratic trails in the hard mud behind them, some hundreds of yards long. They move by some mysterious force, and in the nine decades since we have known about them, no one has ever seen them move.

 


gmanod

I must say that I don't know very much about this, have never seen them, and do agree that it is a fairly boring mystery. There doesn't seem to be any explanation that could make sense, so I say employ Occam's Razor: That one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything- basically that one should not make more assumptions then the minimum needed. Maybe the problem of explaining how the rocks are moving is a violation of this principle because it assumes the rocks are moving. The correct question should be to determine the origin of the trails and not assume that they are the result of the rocks being dragged, becasue they could be the result of weather conditions and the rocks presence warps the area. Anyway who knows...
  (3 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree)



• Review posted on 11/01/2003
• This review has been viewed 19 time(s)

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