The phenomenon of moving stones in Belarus

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The phenomenon of the movement of stones at the bottom of the dried-up Lake Racetrack Playa in the famous Death Valley (USA) has long been discussed. Here, stones weighing up to several hundred kilograms on their own, without the help of living beings, slowly move along the clay bottom of the lake, as evidenced by the traces that remain behind them.

The length of the tracks reaches several tens of meters, their depth is about 2.5 cm. The stones move only once every 2-3 years, and most of the traces of movement persist for 3-4 years. Stones with a ribbed bottom surface leave straighter tracks, and stones on the flat side often have a curved path. Occasionally, during movement, the stones turn over, which affects the nature of their trail.

It is also surprising that the process of movement itself has never been seen or recorded on camera. Similar movements of stones were noted in several other places. There is a legend about a moving Blue-stone on the shore of Lake Pleshcheevo …

Until now, this natural phenomenon has no definitive explanation, although the versions, at times, look quite convincing. That is why the remarkable and mysterious moving stones from Death Valley still hold an exciting intrigue.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, this phenomenon was explained by supernatural forces, later an assumption was made about the effect of electromagnetic fields, the influence of certain gravitational manifestations, seasonal and climatic factors (for example, icing, wind, etc.) was assumed, but not a single assumption was ever made. found convincing confirmation.

And a detailed study of the trajectories of the stones, made in the 40s - 50s of the last century, also did not help to understand the nature of the phenomenon under study, but only added a number of new questions.

For example, why do some stones move while others remain motionless? Why are the stones distributed all over the lake bottom, and not just along its edges? Why in some places there were only traces of movement, but the stones themselves disappeared? How did the stones in one part of the lake move in parallel, and in the other part chaotically?

And yet it moves

A similar fact of stone movement was noted in the Orsha region in the Vitebsk region. Belarus. It is gratifying that here this phenomenon can be explained by a number of physical and natural reasons, therefore this moving stone was not initially considered by the author as a phenomenon.

By chance, the stone and traces of its movement were discovered by the author on May 11, 2016 in the southern vicinity of the village of Zaitsevo. This place is the most elevated part of the left bank of the river. Adrov. The stone is located on the northern slope of the hillock and is an angular block about 0.35 m in diameter (light silicified limestone).

Maybe by accident, but until now only here the movement of the stone and its trace were so noticeable that they paid attention to them. Nowhere else in the Orsha region the author had to observe such a phenomenon. It is explained quite simply …

According to the author, the trace of the stone movement visible in the photograph was formed during the last winter-spring period, the degree of its overgrowth with new grass at the time of detection was the same throughout. The visible movement track is just over 3 meters long. All this makes it possible to somehow judge the speed of movement of the stone. It would be natural to assume that it was not uniform, and changed significantly under the influence of seasonal and weather factors …

The stone moved along a stepped sawtooth trajectory (with lateral observation): rising when the wet underlying soil freezes, then lowering and sliding along an inclined plane when it thaws. This was periodically repeated on the frosty day of the winter-spring period, and began, possibly, in the first autumn cyclical freezing-thawing of the soil.

It is possible that at this time in the trajectory of movement were visible traces of the periodicity of movement - they are weakly distinguished in relief, and, of course, over time they are smoothed out and washed out by precipitation and weathering. You can even roughly calculate the amount of daily movement. With the end of the freeze-thaw period, the movement stopped (until the next season). The need for further observation of this phenomenon in the next season is obvious …

Probably, such a "technology" of movement is applicable only to boulders of a certain size: it is not "suitable" for too small stones (their movement will be very small), and is not able to lift or move too large ones (they are capable of prevent short-term freezing of the underlying and raising soil).

And in the pictures of stones in Death Valley, the boulders are about the same size. This is a kind of oscillatory process that requires certain parameters and conditions for its implementation. It will be interesting to think about the limiting size of the moving stones and the size of the "step" of their cyclic movement separately based on the results of subsequent observations.

By the way, along the depression formed from the movement of the stone (as through a collector), a certain additional amount of melt and rain water flows under it, which further contributes to the process of soaking and saturation of the underlying clay soil with moisture and favors the sliding of the block.

In front of the stone, in the course of its movement, a roller is clearly visible, formed by crushing the plastic soil …

There are several depressions from the movement on the slope of the hill, perhaps, there were also several stones moving here. At the beginning of the trajectories of movement in the ground, depressions were preserved, probably from them, during freezing, the boulders were "pushed out", which then came into motion along the slope of the hill …

Thus, the sliding (creeping) of the stone along the slope occurs due to the change in the volume of the soil during its alternating freezing and thawing.

Creep (from the English creep - to creep, slide) is a well-known process in geology. It occurs under the influence of gravity and the influence of a periodic change in the volume of the soil mass caused by temperature fluctuations (temperature creep), alternate freezing and thawing (permafrost, or cryogenic, creep), swelling and shrinkage of the clay component during moistening and drying (hygrogenic creep), development and death of plant roots.

Considering that such finds were not previously mentioned in the Orsha region, the author could not afford to ignore the noticed natural phenomenon. Moreover, it is somewhat distantly related to the movement of American stones …

Observation of the stone

Observing the stone over the next year (until May 2017) did not reveal any further progress. Confidence in them was given by the fact that the stone had not yet reached the end of the hillside, that is, it was potentially "capable" of continuing to move. The whole cycle of annual seasonality has passed in its own way, and the climatic conditions of the past year were typical for these places.

Thinking about the reasons for stopping the further movement of the stone, we can assume the following:

- like stones in the Valley of Death, and in the Orsha region there is "movement only once in 2-3 years" (which in both cases still remains unexplainable);

- the beginning of the expected further movement was prevented by the roller formed by the crushing of the plastic soil in front of the stone, i.e. the influence of "driving factors" was not enough to overcome his resistance;

- some of the previous "driving factors" during the past year did not appear enough to continue the process of progress. Perhaps there were no cycles of a clear periodicity of freezing-thawing of the underlying soil, the range of daily temperature fluctuations turned out to be narrower;

- this study could not take into account other reasons for the movement of the stone, changes in which caused it to stop. The most probable of these reasons seems to be a temporary difference in the ratio of the amount of groundwater and thawed (rain) waters.

Sisyphean labor

This topic received an unexpected continuation on June 26, 2017 during the next inspection of the moving stone described above. No new movements were noted, but another small boulder with a very clear trace of recent movement was revealed on the hillside 12 m higher.

The stone is a flattened (0.1 m thick) gray angular block of layered quartzite with a maximum size of 0.3 m.

The trace of its movement is recent (no more than a few days or weeks), with a length of only 0.1 m, the direction of movement is opposite (compared to the previously described moving stone): up the slope of the hill (!).

The movements of the "old" and "new" stones lie approximately on the same axis, but have opposite directions (!). And, if the version of cryogenic creep was quite suitable to explain the movement of the "old" stone, then the movement of the newly revealed boulder is clearly of some other nature and it happened during the warm (June month) period …

An attempt to find out the reason for the movement of the stone has not yet provided an acceptable convincing explanation for its fact. There are also no traces of extraneous impact on the boulder. Judging by the notch formed from its movement, before the start of the movement, the stone was buried in the soil: its upper plane barely protruded.

It is interesting that somehow not only a movement of the stone took place, but also its uplift - the edge of the lower plane of the boulder from the side of the formed recess is 2–3 cm above its bottom, and only the front part of the stone rests on the ground crumpled in the direction of movement. A roller of ground crumpled by the movement and the stems of last year's plants is also visible in front of the stone as it moves.

An acceptable explanation for the movement of the stone should probably be recognized as the phenomenon of biogenic creep: the effect of the development of plant roots under a boulder. In support of this, one should recall the often observed destruction of the asphalt pavement by intensively developing plants. Perhaps, it is impossible to interpret in any other way the raising of the stone 2–3 cm above the level of its initial occurrence and its movement up the slope of the hill.

The movement-uplift of the stone coincides with the peculiarity of the season of the year - the beginning of the summer period, the time of the most active development of the flora.

The second moving stone on the northern slope of the hill on the left bank of the river. Adrov in the southeastern neighborhood of the village of Zaitsevo. In the picture to the right of the stone, you can clearly see the notch from its original location. The edges of the formed depression repeat the outline of the stone.

The hypothesis of biogenic movement of the boulder could be confirmed by a simple examination of the underlying soil, which is raising it, or by turning the stone over (fortunately, its small size makes it easy to do this), but until some time it was decided not to disturb the process by any external actions, observing the conditions of the experiment, and for now, restrict ourselves to only superficial observation and measurements …

Undoubtedly, over time, plants should appear next to the stone, "disturbing" its original position. They, perhaps, will prove the correctness of the assumptions presented here.