Proposed second rain date for 2012

[IN2VWS]

As others have mentioned, I think we need a salt-ologist to step up and tell us how long does it take for a thick crust to form on the lake.

In 07, 08 there was a significant amount of silt washed onto the lake. We raced in 09 and 2010.

The main problem we face is the entry point, if it is thin we are in trouble, it is the last place to be useable.
Not starting a discussion on the entry point here, I am asking all newer members who are regular users of the forum to use the search fuction to see what discussion has gone on before.


for example
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=549

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=945

We have had a few wet years, yes. Lake Gairdner is still the best salt in the world when it is dry enough to use, be patient grasshoppers.......... I have a car I can't use anywhere else... trust me,I am as interested in this as ANYONE.

Thank you from a newer member, for the links, but they do not answer the question I asked.

[Greg Watters]

Not quite as easy for me as March but if there is an April meeting i will be there

Thanks for getting the ball rolling guys

[Dr Goggles]

Sorry dude,

I wasn't aiming at you specifically .There are other topics which have discussed the chemistry of the deposition of the salt.Being a club of volunteers people tend to do things off their own bat, and much of this as I pointed out discussed in previous years. I'm sure you are capable of using the search function to see what has already been talked about so that it can be used to add to this bank of knowledge rather than having to find it out all over again.

Hope to see you on the lake sometime.

Cheers Dr G.

[BOB ELLIS]

A few discussions today about running a "back up"date , this is a logistical nightmare (but NOT impossible),!st we need fire & resue ,Medic , tech inspectors , admin , permits ,etc etc.It will take a few days to sort all this info out.
I am (and have always been),for a "rain out"date,this idea has been shot down more than once ! Now the members have had enough,we have $100's of thousand's of machinery ready and waiting to run.Also think of our international vistors(racers and spectaters) that have invested(and wasted) many many dollars to not race(or even spectate).

IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE!!!

Now i will do some "trumpet blowing". I did my time as a civil engineer,and have shown people like Tony Cooke (Cookie),Peter Noy (Old Timer),Rob Carrol,what to look for on the lake surface(and underneath).
When i got the call from Tony on friday,i knew exactly what he was talking about,the lake was FUBAR.

I'm not a 'Salt-oligist', but think i'm reasonably knowledgable and qualified to say that "MAYBE"the surface can heal in 6 to 8 weeks,but with the local knowledge saying that thunder storms are predicted this coming Wed,that may (only may) put a meet in 5 weeks out of contention.

What happens is,when the wet/rains happen ,an amount of silt/dirt gets washed down onto the lake,covered by a layer of water,the sun/wind dries out this water leaving a layer of salt.The lake is like a chocolate layer cake.Mud,salt,mud,salt,mud,salt,etc etc.
Where there are 'high'spots(the lake is NOT level),ie the pit area,we have quality salt (the silt will settle in the low spots),at about the 2 1/2 mile mark we have a creek running across the lake (low spot),the lake then rises and down toward the 'deep end' then slopes downward.At about the 8-9 mile mark we are getting wet salt again as ít is a low point. Under these 'low points' is where the silt has settled and the salt is very thin. But this year it seems we have an extremely thin layer of WET salt above the mud.

Thats my two cents worth , this is still a democarcy? , so have YOUR say!!

Cheers,Bob ,#202 ,

[mal hewett]

Hey Bob , great reply! That certainly helps everyone to understand the track characteristics a lot better, both old players and new !! (and you didnt have to write it in red!)cheers Mal

[Cookey]

Sorry that I haven't chimed into this topic earlier but I needed a nanno nap after doing all of the driving to and from the lake and sharing life's highs & lows with Smurf(plus a few lemonades of course)
When we were inspecting the lake early on Saturday afternoon the overseer from Mt Ive, Eric Banna (not his real surname but easier to remember ) asked us why we had planned to hold a race meeting so soon after a full moon.
He has lived and worked all of his life around properties that have salt lakes on or near them and told us that on Friday night the lake was like a Jacuzzi with the effect of the full moon sucking the water (plus some extra mud & silt) up from deep under the salt.This happens at these times and is a feature for tourists to come there to witness.
The water that we were wading around in had not been blown down from the top end of the lake
The mild northerly wind was in fact keeping it down our way.
Any of our resident experts know about this phenomena when they set down this years race dates

[IN2VWS]

Thanks for the explanation Bob. Well said.

[Dr Goggles]

Hey Cookie and Bob,
I sense the frustration of what isn't really an open topic discussion.The moon however should be.The theory has been loudly dismissed by some members(Personally I worry that there are too many non-racers making decisions based on when certain hot-rod shows are on. ALL I care about is the salt.) and to be honest I got tired of talking about what I thought was one of the few scientific methods of planning when we shouldn't have an event.The water "not coming down from up north" (read the stuff near the bottom of the post here)is what we have contended for years now.The locals will have seen the lake become wet in still, dry conditions. They will have also see the lake get rained on and then the water disappear rapidly. The important factors are the height of the water table and how much it is oscillating due to tidal factors.

The high points that Bob mentions are because of the nature of the lake's formation(read at the bottom) it isn't an ancient lake that "filled up" with salt

And I'm sorry about the red Mal but you and I have spoken about this and found some agreement , I wish that we could somehow get the information embedded.

Once again Cookey and Smurf you saved a lot of people a lot of hassle and your efforts are much appreciated

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=772&hilit=Full+moon

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=619&hilit=Full+moon


If you search "Full moon" you'll find a bunch of stuff.

In 2007 when I spoke to a bunch of people about the issue I didn't find anyone who dismissed the tidal effect of the full moon.I spoke to Harry Duncan a hydro-geologist and mining engineer( since died), his interest was more why I'd think it wouldn't have an effect adding only that it didn't move as fast as the tide.I can't find his name right now but I spent a while talking to the owner of the station that includes Lake Hart( at the northern end of Gairdner)he didn't let me finish the first question before he launched into it. He maintained that "all the dry water holes on this place change color on a full moon" and that " roo-shooters won't go out on the lakes under a full moon because you get bogged"..

The rain figures are historical data and have no bearing on when it will rain but they are are only guidepost as to the likelihood of rain at any given time...........heck, the last twenty years may not conform with the historical data( I haven't looked) and we may have just been dead lucky..........there may be something in looking into storm events, is it more likely to get big dumps, or multiple light falls ?....

For my money we need to stay away from full moons that's at least one factor we can be sure of.
...few understand what I'm trying to do , but they vastly outnumber those who understand why..


Dr Goggles




Pick Your Date!!

Postby Greg Watters » Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:54 am
we have seen the water movement in the US when the evening tide comes in, pot holes in the main tracks like the road to the pits can be 100-`120mm deep or more and you can see the changes in level of the water just under the surface they can be dry all day and 1/2 full of water by late arvo , can't remember the moon at the time but i think it was getting pretty full , after seeing that quite clearly i have no doubt of the internal tide, how it manifests itself on our thicker salt could be an entirely different matter..

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Greg Watters

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Re: Pick Your Date!!

Postby RGV » Sat Apr 16, 2011 10:00 am
Ive just done a search on "full moon effects on water tables" and it seem gardeners know all about this.

A quote from a site that might be interesting.

Water Table
The phases of the moon affect the amount of moisture in the soil. There is less water in the soil during the last quarter of the moon's phase because the water table is at it lowest during that phase. Lunar gardeners turn over their gardens during this time, because less moisture makes the soil easier to till.



Read more: The Effects of the Moon Phases on the World | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_7282788_effec ... z1JdgTPqpA

We need the "Mythbusters"
Thanx
Dave
(Last Minute Racing) DLRA #928


RGV

Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:17 pm
Location: Adelaide Hills

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Re: Pick Your Date!!

Post by Dr Goggles » Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:55 am
from Wiki:

A playa lake is formed when rain fills a round depression in the landscape, creating a small lake. The water is generally freshwater, When all of the water evaporates, a playa is formed. The playa appears as a flat bed of clay, generally encrusted with precipitated salts. These evaporate minerals are a concentration of weathering products that have been left behind. Some examples of evaporite minerals are sodium carbonate, borax, and other salts. Playas are often found in bajadas, a depositional landform of desert environments.[1]

Dry lakes can also form when the water table intersects the surface and water seeps into them.

Dry lakes are typically formed in semi-arid to arid regions of the world. The largest concentration of dry lakes in the world (nearly 22,000) is in the southern High Plains of Texas and eastern New Mexico.[citation needed]

Most dry lakes are small, however Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, near Potosí, the largest salt flat in the world is of 4,085 square miles (10,582 square km).

Many dry lakes contain shallow water during the rainy season, especially during wet years. If the layer of water is thin and is moved around the dry lake by wind, an exceedingly hard and smooth surface may develop. Thicker layers of water may result in a "cracked-mud" surface and "teepee" structure desiccation features. Very little water can result in dune formation.




For starters we need to remember that Gairdner has no tributaries it fits the description above of the water table intersecting the surface.This year we were contending with a water table that was already loaded, then we got rainfall , it had no-where to go.

The layers of mud that have been deposited are more the worry. The lake copped a big layer of mud in 07, it needs to be dryish or have a thick layer of salt on top of it.....the muddy parts near the ramp likewise.

I imagine that the salt is much more permeable than the soil but either way the lower the water the table the better when we are lookin for hard salt.

That mud is slowly sinking as the salt is dissolved and then precipitated as the water evaporates each time the lake dries.......if the salt washes off/dissolves, then the water blows up north before it evaporates we're screwed, we need the salt to be deposited at the ramp.

[Mossy]

I'm all for another date, April/May would be good but any month would suit me.
Cheers Mossy

[momec3]

The way I see it is this. We should have a preset rain date every year. The investment as Bob says by the club members as a whole is way to great to hang off one event a year with no backup date.

The reality is this year even with everyones best intentions this will still take at least 2 to 3 weeks from now to get to a firm decision and most of us have shot our holidays to hell.

Will the Lake recover by then? I have concerns that we would do this whole exercise for nought.

Personally if we ran an event end of April I would make it some how.

This forum is less than ideal for getting a true demorcratic vote as many of the members don't use it.

True science does not lie and can't be swept under the salt. Next to the Sun the moon has the largest external influence on our little space ball. Lets stop trying to swim against the tide and arrange race dates with the full knowledge base that we and many others have firmly established.

Chris

[JonB]

If it is decided to work with moon cycles then the timing would move slightly between years.
Similar to Easter which is the Sunday after the Paschal full moon

After a month is decided the event date could then be the week that includes the new moon (dark moon, opposite full) fir that month, from there it is pretty easy to set dates into future years.

As far as bigger rain events, I have Rainman software from DPI that has all the weather data from Australian monitoring points, I will reload it on my laptop and have a look at the data from Nonning.
What events are people interested in?
Greater than 12.5mm & 25mm would be worthwhile.
I can send you the data Goggles if you want to overlay it with lunar cycles.

Trying to get another date together this year is a long shot IMHO, the depth of water from the pics and the evaporation rate don't add up.

Jon

[zork]

I am for a second date, any time would suit.
Cheers JD. #921.

[59chev]

If my memory serves me correctly,, the 2009 event was run on a full moon.......

[ROSS BROWN]

..... "PICK A DATE"......
sort of should have this in the other thread

The "WORLD" weather system turns upside early Feburary through to early April.. (since the beginning of time)
Australia has had to endure floods while America has a tornado season...
Sailing boats race the opossite way to usual ,because the trade winds have reversed direction inside that period.

I don't think the rain guage tells the complete story.
My pick for a date is late "OCTOBER" before the begining of the flood season..
You might say that is when the rain guage is at one of its upper levels .... but that is from spot storms (that will evapotate quickly ) and not from full blown weather systems that get dished up this time of year..
I feel there is a need to split the dates well apart. .... Easier on the logistics...... and enough time for the lake to repair itself if the current "MARCH" event is a write off.. (which is allways quite likely )

Which ever date is chosen .... I WILL BE THERE....

SHOOT ME DOWN IF YA LIKE.......... Thick skin

Ross....

[ROSS BROWN]

One factor that we have all let slip.....
"THE WIND"

Still air to me .... Is far more important than hot air or cold air.....

The hot air ballonists will be able to answer that question ...
Or does some one have a spread sheet on that one....

Ross