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Back to Fantastic places

Fantastic places

The purpose of this module is to stimulate an interest in and a sense of wonder about places

  • Key Stage Three,
  • Module,
  • Landscape systems,
  • Environmental interactions and management
  • Overview
  • Svalbard: People, place and polar bears
  • Northern lights
  • A day at the racetrack
  • Stonehenge: Seventh wonder or national disgrace?
  • The totem pole and the toothfish
  • The Earth as art
  • Assessment

A day at the racetrack

Key questions

Where is Racetrack Playa?

What processes could be responsible for the Sliding Rocks?

Where is Racetrack Playa?

Racetrack Playa is a seasonally dry lake (a playa) located in the northern part of the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park, California, USA. Death Valley is near the western border with Nevada, and is approximately 300km from Los Angeles. It is one of the many desert basins within the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

What processes could be responsible for the Sliding Rocks?

Early investigators explained the phenomenon as the result of the rocks being embedded in an ice sheet in the coldest storms of winter. Being 1,131 metres above sea level, the playa receives snow which freezes to a layer of ice at times. Ice rafts can form and it was thought that they could move across the playa lake with the rocks embedded in them. However, experiments to set up similar phenomena in 1996 did not fully support this theory. In 1998 investigators during an abnormally strong El Nino year with ice-sheets, did not show any movement of rocks from their mapped locations. Nevertheless, further measurements using very accurate GPS measurement instruments have found that there is a general movement trend towards the north-north east, which is the same direction that the prevailing winds move towards. Therefore, winds are the most likely cause of the trails in some way. The rocks seem to be propelled by the winds which have been made much stronger by being channelled through corridors in the south.

Images

  • Racetrack Playa 

  • Sliding rock one 

  • Sliding rock two 

  • Sliding rock three

  • Sliding rock close up

  • Source of the sliding rocks 

  • Death Valley at night

Images copyright Noel Jenkins and shared under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license unless stated otherwise

Links

  • You Tube video clip of flooding on Racetrack Playa

  • The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa

  • The Roving Rocks of Racetrack Playa

  • Sliding rocks video

Starter

What is unusual about this rock? Has this rock moved? How has it moved? Think of some ideas.

Sliding rock

Nobody has ever witnessed or filmed the rocks moving.

These rocks are located in Death Valley, California ,USA. 

Main Activity

This is one of the mysterious sliding rocks.

Close up of sliding rock

In pairs or in groups work out the reasons for why these rocks mysteriously move by solving the mystery 'Why does the rock move?'

You can also watch a YouTube video showing the Racetrack in wet conditions. It might give you a clue or might it be a red herring? 

Plenary

As a group present your ideas on why the rock moves to the rest of the class.

Use evidence from the mystery cards to back up your ideas as well as the images.

Groups can challenge each other's theories to arrive at a consensus, or agreement, on why this rock moves.

Early investigators explained the phenomenon as the result of the rocks being embedded in an ice sheet in the coldest storms of winter. Being 1,131 metres above sea level, the playa receives snow which freezes to a layer of ice at times. Ice rafts can form and it was thought that they could move across the playa lake with the rocks frozen into them.

However, in 1998 during an abnormally cold winter with ice-sheets, the rocks did not move.

Using very accurate GPS to track the rocks, investigators have found a general movement trend towards the north-north east, which is the same direction that the prevailing winds move towards.

Therefore, winds are the most likely cause of moving the rocks. The rocks seem to be propelled by the winds which are made much stronger by being channelled through corridors in the south.

Downloads

  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Mystery Cards "Why Does Molly Move?" (.pdf)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Factsheet: Desert Processes and Death Valley (.pdf)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Death valley at night (.jpg)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Racetrack Playa (.jpg)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Rock 1 (.jpg)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Rock 2 (.jpg)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Rock 3 (.jpg)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Sliding Rock (.jpg)
  • Fantastic Places Lesson 3 Source Rock (.jpg)
  • Download all

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(with the Institute of British Geographers),
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