File:Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park.jpg
Size of this preview: 544 × 599 pixels. Other resolutions: 218 × 240 pixels | 436 × 480 pixels | 697 × 768 pixels | 929 × 1,024 pixels | 2,525 × 2,782 pixels.
Original file (2,525 × 2,782 pixels, file size: 3.76 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects. The description on its file description page there is shown below.
Summary
DescriptionRacetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park.jpg |
English: Landscape image; Location: Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park; orientation of this view is south-to-north from near the southern edge of the playa. The Grandstand is visible on the horizon a little to the right of the center of the image, about 2 miles distant from the camera. Note the track through the dried mud behind the boulder. These tracks are left when winter storms deposit an inch or two of rain water on the surface of the playa, which consists of extremely fine grained, impermeable clay that becomes very slippery when wet. This water can freeze overnight into sheets of ice with the rocks locked into them, with a thin layer of liquid water trapped between the ice and the ground surface; if a windstorm then occurs, with speeds above about 50 mph, the ice can be moved by the wind, dragging the rocks along with it, which then gouge the tracks through the mud. The curvature, and abrupt changes in direction of the tracks, reflects changes in speed and direction of the wind, and collisions between different slabs of ice that deflect them, while the ice sheet was being pushed along. The rocks originate in the mountains surrounding The Racetrack, most of them from a specific steep bluff on the south edge of the playa, and there are usually several hundred scattered around at any given time, ranging in size from gravel to boulders a half-meter across that can weigh 300 kg or more. The cause of the movement of these rocks was a mystery for many decades until it was finally observed and photographed by eyewitnesses Richard and James Norris on December 21, 2013 [see http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rocks-move-death-valley-lake-bed-20140827-story.html]. |
Date | (Revised 2017-05-08) |
Source | Own work |
Author | Lgcharlot |
Camera location | 36° 40′ 00″ N, 117° 33′ 30″ W | View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap | 36.666667; -117.558333 |
---|
Licensing
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue |
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
- You are free:
- to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix – to adapt the work
- Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
You may select the license of your choice.
Items portrayed in this file
depicts
5 December 2006
36°40'0.001"N, 117°33'29.999"W
image/jpeg
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 05:25, 10 July 2013 | 2,525 × 2,782 (3.76 MB) | wikimediacommons>Soerfm | Crop |
File usage
The following page uses this file:
Metadata
This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it.
If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.
Author | LAURENCE G. CHARLOT |
---|---|
Copyright holder |
|
Short title |
|
Image title |
|