Racetrack Playa is a dry, flat lakebed in California that is cluttered with numerous mystical, moving rocks. Understood as the “cruising stones,” these rocks leave tracks extending up to 1,500 feet (460 meters) long as they wander throughout the surface area apparently without cause.

The cruising stones have actually puzzled scientists considering that the mid-1900s, however up until 2013, nobody had in fact seen or taped the rocks moving. It was clear, nevertheless, that they occasionally altered area, due to the fact that they left grooves in the ground behind them. Incredibly, a few of the Racetrack Playa rocks weigh around 700 pounds (320 kgs).

In a research study released in 2014researchers lastly caught the motion of the cruising stones. The scientists fitted 15 rocks with motion-activated GPS instruments and set up a time-lapse electronic camera to monitor them. The group likewise established a high-resolution weather condition station to get small variations in wind speed.

The experiment supplied responses in a remarkably brief quantity of time, considered that the cruising stones can remain in one area for more than a years at a time without moving. In between December 2013 and January 2014– simply 2 years into the job, which began in 2011– the scientists observed more than 60 rocks moving at speeds of 7 to 16 feet per minute (2 to 5 meters per minute).

The research study exposed that the cruising stones move when a thin, oiling “windowpane” layer of ice kinds on the playa in the evening after rains. The early morning sun warms and melts the ice, forming drifting panels that push a number of rocks along simultaneously in an instructions and at speeds identified by the wind.

The rocks originate from the surrounding mountains, toppling down onto Racetrack Playa as an outcome of disintegration. They are made from dolomite and syenite, according to the National Forest FoundationThe playa, which extends about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) long and 2 miles (3.2 km) large, formed around 10,000 years earlier, when weather modifications triggered an ancient lake to vaporize, leaving a large area of mud.

Sascha is a U.K.-based student personnel author at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science interaction from Imperial College London. Her work has actually appeared in The Guardian and the health site Zoe. Composing, she takes pleasure in playing tennis, bread-making and searching pre-owned stores for covert gems.