Ice rafts not sails: Floating the rocks at Racetrack Playa, Paper by Ralph Lorenz et. al. Options

[ngunn]

Thanks once again to Jason B for making this intriguing paper accessible to all: http://barnesos.net/publications/papers/20...track.Rafts.pdf

[nprev]

Hmm. Got it, Ralph.

Well, let's see: How about a small ground radar or sonar system? The analog here is the radar that major airports use to monitor surface movements of aircraft. This would be non-invasive for the playa.

A few of the admittedly many challenges are:

1. Available power (always).
2. Commercial availability of suitable equipment; might need some pretty high-freq stuff to get useable returns from small targets like those rocks.
3. Look geometry/suitable siting: You'd probably need to set it up on a small hill or rise to look down on the playa.
4. $$$

Hope you don't mind the goofy suggestions. It's an interesting problem to contemplate!

EDIT: Re RF hazard (if radar was selected), the good news here is that most modern equipment has very low peak power output compared to older systems. The innovation driving this has been improved receiver sensitivity & selectivity; radars don't have to blast out nearly as much energy as they once did.