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facts

The sailing stones of Racetrack Playa

In Death Valley, rocks cross a dry lakebed on their own, each trailing a long furrow through cracked mud. Nobody had ever seen one move.

Scientists fitted fifteen rocks with GPS. In December 2013 a shallow pond froze into windowpane ice; the late-morning melt broke it into floating panels.

A light breeze pushed the panels, and the panels shoved the rocks across soft mud. Turns out the culprit was thin ice and moving air, caught at last.

Source: journals.plos.org

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