700lb Rocks Move on Ice!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Okay, fun fact. Imagine rocks that move on their own, leaving trails in the desert. No hands, no magic. In Death Valley, massive stones weighing up to 700 lb glide across a dry lake bed called Racetrack Playa. For over 100 years, people were baffled. Trails snaked hundreds of feet, zigzagging and looping. Theories ranged from alien forces to pranksters. But no one had ever seen the rocks move. Enter a team of scientists in 2013. They slathered the rocks with GPS trackers and set up a weather station, expecting a long wait.

[00:00:41]Then poof, rain filled the desert floor with 3 in of water. Overnight, it froze into ice. The next day, sunlight cracked the ice into giant floating panels. A whisper of wind. Just a few mile PR pushed the ice slabs. And those slabs, they nudged the rocks, carving trails in the mud below. The team caught it all on time-lapse video. After decades of deadend guesses, the answer wasn't magic. It was ice. And that's a fun fact.