For the dull landscape, the located part of the Mojave Desert was named Death Valley. There is not a single plant on her cracked earth. The boulders of considerable size, scattered throughout the plateau, gave the area another name, the Valley of Sliding Stones.
The Death Valley, visited by tourists, has been a natural monument since 1933. The vast area is part of the California National Park. After the rains, the bottom of the area surrounded by mountains occasionally turns into a swamp for a short time, but the water quickly evaporates.
Traveler boulders
Arrays are known to change location outside of human intervention. The most famous are:
- Xin-Stone;
- Turov crosses;
- Kaaba stone;
- A wandering field in Kazakhstan;
- Stone of Buddha.
Drowned at the behest of Vasily Shuisky, the Sin-stone rose from the depths of Lake Pleshcheevo and made it to the shore 70 years later. The conquerors failed to sink the Kaaba stone. The Turov crosses, buried under Soviet rule, also grew out of the ground.
Every 16 years, the Buddha Stone climbs and descends from the mountain without any outside interference. Not far from Semipalatinsk, on the Wandering Field in winter, round boulders roll over the snow, sliding like a sled.
Explanation of the phenomenon
In ancient times, it was believed that the spirits living in them moved the boulders. Scientists began to search for a clue only in the 20th century. So far, there are three hypotheses.
According to one of them, the movement of the massifs is caused by showers. Heavy rains make the clay surface of Death Valley an excellent skating rink for wind-driven boulders. However, there is no explanation as to how the wind can move a stone weighing more than 200 kg from its place.
It turned out to be groundless and the assumption that a strong wind is pushing the cobblestones. According to the calculations of the researchers, then the wind speed should exceed several tens of kilometers per minute.
In the last century, it was believed that the reason for movement is the magnetic field. Scientists stated that the Valley is located in a special zone, which affects all objects, making them move. It was not possible to prove this idea either.
The most probable theory is that stones slide on a crust of ice formed under them in the cold season and facilitating sliding on wet clay.
Research continues
For the first time, the American prospector Joseph Crook told about the anomaly in 1915. In 1948, the phenomenon was described in detail in the pages of the bulletin of the American Geological Society. In addition to the story about the terrain, movement and size of boulders, a map of the location of "living" boulders was presented. In 1952, in Life magazine, a photograph of unusual objects taken by park clerk Louis G. Kirk examining the furrows left by them.
Geologists Dwight Carey and Bob Sharp in 1972 decided to experimentally study how boulders move. Each of the 30 objects they selected received its own name. Research has continued for 7 years. Scientists have found that movement does not depend on the time of year and circumstances. I couldn’t find any systems or patterns. The stones could roll over several tens of meters during the day or remain motionless for years.
The hypothesis of Messina in 1993 regarding the division into opposite streams of a strong wind blowing in the valley, forcing the stones located at different ends of Death Valley to move, did not help to reveal the secret of the plateau.
Scientists to this day are amazed by the mystery of the movement of numerous boulders along the bottom of the dried-up Lake Reystrek Playa. The uncertainty of direction is also of interest: an unexpectedly sliding stone can turn to the side or turn over. Such turns are not associated with either the direction of the wind or the magnetic field of the planet.
This mystery attracts many lovers of the supernatural to Death Valley. The only thing that upsets tourists is that no one was able to see the movement in real time with their own eyes. No less striking is the fact that sometimes stones simply disappear from the earth's surface, leaving only a trace on it.
