Very Big Rocks

I'd recommend ordering the Geological Survey map of the area, which should allow you to measure distances directly on the map. Failing that, you didn't say how you plan to measure distances. But a crude approximation could be obtained with a compass and a car odometer. Back up about 1/4 mile from the highway point closest to the formation, take compass (e.g., angle from north to the formation) and odometer readings, then go ahead until the compass reading has changed by 60 degrees and take the second odometer reading. Because your travel path and your two lines of sight are legs of an equilateral triangle, the length of each leg is your odometer reading difference. The highway point of closest approach to the rocks is 0.866 of the length of a traingle leg. -|Tom|-

I have found a ranger finder good to 1,500 yards. Should be adequate. Next planning to attach a one foot ruler to the end of a yardstick. Would place near end of yardstick on bridge of my nose and measure dimensions of the rocks via their apparent span on the one foot ruler. Hey, I'm a chemical engineer, not an astronomer.

Did work on a survey crew 45 years ago, but I was on the dumb end of the chain.

Dr. Van Flandern, I will keep your method as a backup. I'm not sure the highway in California was straight. Seems it was quite curvy...


Gregg Wilson

Did you have a look at the area with google earth Gregg? how far from North Edwards were the buried rocks?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by shando</i>
<br />Did you have a look at the area with google earth Gregg? how far from North Edwards were the buried rocks?
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Hi Shando,

These rocks were a complete surprize to me and all I can estimate is that they were between Bakersfield and Tehachapi or perhaps just beyond Tehachapi. I have tried to look for them on Google Earth but haven't been able to pick them out. Will be taking high res pictures, range finding, sizing and location to nearest mile marker on State Roure 58 - in March. The rocks are heavily smoothed and half buried in the ground so movement of them by glaciers is out of the question.

Gregg Wilson

Gregg,

My first guess would be that the rocks you saw are what's called "glacial erratics", such as Doane Rock at Cape Cod National Seashore:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic

"Erratics" are one of the features of interest in and around Yosemite National Park in the Sierras. If you follow the Merced River downstream when leaving the park you see huge rocks pretty far away from the mountains that look totally out of place sitting there by themselves.

Tahachapi is not very far from the southern tip of the Sierras so that's a reasonable guess.

My second guess is that they arose by some of the same mechanisms of the mountains. Tahachapi is at about 4,000' elevation, so it's still really "in" the mountains. Take a look at a picture of Half Dome in Yosemite. It's one massive rock that pushed up from the Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. Your rocks could have a similar origin, considering their location.



rd

I central aim is to collect the evidence and then present it on this board. The actual data is real and human theories can very well be wrong. Including mine.

Gregg Wilson