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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

An article published in plosone.org [plosone.org] finally solves the mystery of sailing stones [wikipedia.org]. - rocks from the size of pebbles to boulders that move and inscribe long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention, most notable on Racetrack Playa [wikipedia.org]. TFA has some nice pictures documenting the movements.

Essentially, this happens when there's enough water to cover the playa [wikipedia.org], but not enough to submerge the rocks. At night time, the water freezes and the next day it may melt sufficiently to create ice sheets floating on a shallow pool. Even light wind are able to move these ice-sheets which, even when they break around large rocks, exercise enough pressure to move them.

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