RoadTrip
Death Valley
Racetrack Playa & the Mysterious Sliding Stones by
Mark Sedenquist
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Petroglyphs in Death Valley |
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Living in Las Vegas, Nevada, I find it easy to imagine that
all that goes on around us can be explained or manipulated by
other humans. The growth of a city of nearly two million residents
in one of the driest places in the Americas, the wonder and
artistry of the various strip performers and shows and the sheer
exuberance of a municipality that seems to thrive on reinventing
itself at least once every couple of weeks tends to reinforce
the notion that we, as humans, have it all figured out.
So, it may come as some surprise to learn that
a couple of hours northeast of the Strip is a road that uses
discarded tea kettles as navigation beacons and a dry lake
bed featuring a geologic conundrum that continues to baffle
scientists and entertain visitors. A couple of days ago, I
joined some fellow road adventurers and traveled to the Racetrack
Playa in the extreme northwest section of Death Valley National
Park. The Racetrack Playa is accessible by a graded -- albeit
poorly -- gravel road that extends from the paved road just
to the west of the Ubehebe Crater near the Grapevine Ranger
Station.
Some who look into the gaping mouth of the Ubehebe
Crater see only a large hole in the ground, but to my fellow
road tripper, physicist John Tsitouras, who calibrated many
of the underground nuclear test explosions in the early 1960s
at the Nevada Test Site, "this was a mega-megaton explosion
of at least 500 kilotons." The Ubehebe Crater was formed
only about two thousand years ago when super heated magma
came in contact with water-bearing rock and resulted in a
series of massive explosions of steam and rocks. This hydrovolcanic
eruption left a hole about 770 feet deep and half a mile wide
and created a debris field about 150 feet thick. There are
over a dozen similar volcanoes in the area. [Here
are some photos taken by USGS personnel of this area.]
Next: Racetrack
Playa>
Mark
Sedenquist
April 23, 2006
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