Cientistas resolveram o mistério das "rochas andantes" do Vale da Morte
Você, certamente, já ouviu falar das rochas que se movem por conta própria, nos EUA. Agora cientistas conseguiram explicar o fenômeno29/08/2014 - 11H08/ ATUALIZADO 11H0808 / POR LUCIANA GALASTRI
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(FOTO: )Por décadas, o mistério das rochas andantes do Vale da Morte, nos EUA, intrigaram visitantes e cientistas. Pedras que pesavam até 340 kg estavam se movendo por conta própria, deixando rastros na areia. Mas ninguém nunca havia visto as rochas enquanto elas se moviam, apenas observado sua trilha e que elas não ficavam no mesmo lugar por muito tempo. Isso, claro, causou especulações: será que eram humanos que moviam as rochas? Aliens? Algum fenômeno natural desconhecido?
Apostando na última hipótese, cientistas resolveram monitorar a região. "Esperávamos ter que esperar dez anos antes de ver algo se movendo, mas com dois anos de pesquisa, tivemos a sorte de testemunhar pessoalmente o fenômeno", contou o paleobiologista Richard Norris, da Universidade da Califórnia em San Diego, ao Review Journal.
Com isso eles conseguiram reunir dados sobre o movimento e concluir que o segredo para as rochas andarem no lugar mais quente dos EUA é o gelo. Em noites frias, camadas de gelo são formadas nas proximidades da rocha. À medida em que elas vão derretendo e se tornando mais finas, ventos conseguem movê-as. E esses pedaços de gelo encostam em rochas, movendo os minerais para frente.
(FOTO: DIVULGAÇÃO)Richard Norris e seu primo, James Norris, co-autor do estudo, foram os primeiros a testemunhar o fenômeno. James fez até um vídeo usando as fotos que tirou no Vale da Morte, para provar o que estava acontecendo. Assista aqui.
O estudo foi publicado no PLOS One.
http://revistagalileu.globo.com/Ciencia/noticia/2014/08/cientistas-resolveram-o-misterio-das-rochas-andantes-do-vale-da-morte.html
Watch Death Valley’s Rocks Walk Before Your Eyes
Posted by Jason Bittel in Weird & Wild on August 27, 2014(11)
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A “walking” rock tagged with a GPS tracker on a cold, desert morning. Photograph by Mike HartmannSome scientists use GPS locations to keep track of wide-ranging sharks. Others attach GPS tags to observe the movements of reclusive snow leopards. And then there are the guys who use the technology to study the movements of rocks.
Yes, rocks. But not just any old rocks.
These are the “sliding rocks” or “sailing stones” of Death Valley. First documented by miners back in the 1900s, these rocks range from pebbles to 600-pound (272-kilogram) boulders and seem to move of their own accord. The only evidence of their activity is a series of long, perplexing trails left in the valley’s dried mud. (Related: “Stranger Than Nature: Death Valley’s Moving Rocks.”)
Scientists have been trying to solve the mystery of the sliding rocks since 1948, and have since proposed all manner of explanation: dust devils, flooding, ice sheets, hurricane-force winds, and algal films.
A sliding rock in Death Valley leaves behind a trail through the dried mud. Photograph by Michael Melford, National Geographic CreativeBut thanks to new photographic and meteorological evidence presented by Richard Norris of theScripps Institution of Oceanography and James Norris of Interwoof, we may finally have a conclusive answer as to what makes the stones stir. The researchers’ findings were published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
A Goldilocks Phenomenon
According to Norris, a geological oceanographer and paleontologist, Death Valley’s rocks move under a delicate mix of water, ice, sun, and wind. Norris and his cousin were able to document the rock movements by inserting GPS tags into chunks of limestone and syncing their movements with readings taken from a custom-built weather station.
Unlike one of the previous explanations, which had thick ice capturing the rocks and carrying them along like a miniature glacier, Norris said their evidence shows that thin ice floes break up and pile against the rocks. This creates enough friction to cause the rocks to skim across the muddy surface of a temporary pond. If you were there to see it, the rocks would look like ice-breaker ships plowing through sea ice—though in this instance, it’s the ice that’s moving the ships.
But the conditions have to be just right, what Norris called a sort of Goldilocks phenomenon. If the ice is too thick, or the day is too sunny, or the wind isn’t steady enough, then nothing happens.
Oh, and you have to have standing water—a rare phenomenon in itself for an area that receivesless than 2 inches of rainfall annually.
“The process of ice breaking up and shoving rocks around happens every year if you go up into Saskatchewan or Ontario, but you don’t normally associate it with a hot, dry place like Death Valley,” said Norris. “And yet here’s the same kind of process unfolding occasionally—very occasionally—in this place that we associate with a very different kind of climate.”
Watching Rocks Slither
Scientists have long known that whatever it is that causes the stones to move, it doesn’t happen very often. In fact, the mudflat where you’ll find the rocks and their trails, called Racetrack Playa, can go a decade or more without showing any new signs of movement.
That’s why it’s a fantastic coincidence that the researchers not only recorded evidence of rocks shifting by way of their GPS tags, but also witnessed the phenomenon in person this past winter.
“There was this crackling sound or popping sound all over the playa,” said Norris. “One moment it was quiet, and the next moment it was popping everywhere as the ice began to break up, and I said to my cousin, ‘This is it! We’re actually seeing this whole thing happen!’”
In all likelihood, the trails created that day will be frozen in time for another decade or more. That is, until another rain shower pours down and erases the stones’ trails like a giant Etch A Sketch.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/27/watch-death-valleys-rocks-walk-before-your-eyes/
