10ofRods
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RE: Tropical storm Hilary.
Thank you @Interested_But_Confused & @10ofRods for your wonderful explanations. I am map challenged but have been in a couple tropical storms & one hurricane. Wind was always a big issue during the storms I experienced. IDK if FJ's & JRF's remains were in a wind-sheltered location, how open/large the flat, ridge, wash, peak was or where they passed before the storm. IMO Wind gusts & rain together may have carried the remains to the areas found. Fang would have been carried farther away from the truck due to her smaller skeleton.
"The bone mass in the skeleton makes up about 14% of the total body weight." Human skeleton Wikipedia
IF a human skeleton weighs estimate approximately 12%-15% of body weight; Rods would know exactly but 14% is rough, average, close enough to figure if it's possible wind gusts could have helped move the skeletons.
JRF's remains would have been approx. (180 lbs X 14%) 25 lbs.
FJ's remains would have been approx. (110 lbs X 14%) 16 lbs. (Females are usually less than 14%.)
Both skeletons would have been under the 37 lb weight that can be moved by a minimum wind of 28 mph.
View attachment 462000
photo from abc7chicago wind lesson math
While we don't know the exact location of the truck and remains, the National Weather Service reported Hilary tropical storm peak wind speeds gathered in areas close at over 40 mph.
Peak wind speed reported:
Borrego Valley Airport 49 mph
Borrego 43 mph
Julian 48 mph
Hilary brings powerful winds to county
More a question about wind gusts and speculation from unscientific me.
JMO
If the remains had been blown by wind, how do you explain the jaw being next to the skull? Or the other remains (which appear fairly large) being close by?
Those are gusts of wind, not steady wind speeds. We had gusts of up to 40 mph in my area as well - nothing much blew away, but some tree branches did come down. The long bones would behave very differently from a skull in wind. The finger and toe bones could certainly have been blown by wind.
Since it is clear that some collagen still connected the jaw to the skull when those came to rest in the Canyon (IMO, it's clear), then decomp was not complete when those came to their resting place. To me, it looks like decomp mostly took place right at the place where we saw the pictures of the bones. No way wind blew those bones down the Canyon/Wash and deposited them as if they were anatomically related.
A gust of wind can move something, yes - usually very small distances, per gust. But the winds were *not* steady at 40 mph. They actually cycled. The steady wind is what is needed to move a 2-3 lb skull. (Skulls vary from 2-10 lbs in real life - and skeletons vary in weight as well; JRF looks average to me - so I'd figure 3 lbs. Gusts of wind would move a 3 lb object only a short distance (probably less than an inch), and it would also depend on whether the skull would (as is inevitable) get tipped onto its side, in which case, it would not move easily due to friction (don't forget to estimate friction - there's a reason that small rocks
Winds - Palm Springs area August 23 (this is the day with the most wind - gusts were up to 10 mph as I read this chart)
Winds - Palm Springs August 24
(note that nearby Palm Springs is at an altitude similar to Borrego Springs - and most data shown for Borrego Springs on national weather sites is actually coming from just outside of Palm Springs). Even if we quadruple those wind speeds to account for altitude, it's still a fact that Harper Flat is sheltered a bit from the south (by mountains), and that the flats down below (rather than higher up) always get more wind - just as they get more water. So people who live in lower sections of canyons got the worst of those winds but for the most part, no property damage reported). Winds are channeled down canyons and washes, just as water is.
I am not disputing that water has flowed over Harper Flat - and could have flowed there on August 23-24. I am disputing that skulls and jaws would travel together in that event, much less remain with other parts of the skeleton. A month is long enough for very considerable decomp and scavenging to occur. It was like a low oven out there. All the temps we read by official weather stations are taken in the shade.
120F is a low oven, perfect for drying things - and it is exceptionally dry there most of the time. While the windspeeds noted above might be lower, they still illustrate the nature of those winds - it was NOT 40 mph steady. Those were gusts. Bones lying on the granite of Harper Flat would have to overcome the friction of granite - neither the long bones nor the skull are aerodynamic - and somehow, a variety of bones stayed together during this event and ended up in a Canyon/Wash (I'm still using both terms because the person who found the skull has been public about it - just not to MSM, they have described where they were, IIRC - as that's how LE found the bones; they gave the information to a well known photojournalist - who does not own her own MSM outlet, but posts on FB and Twitter; she too has given out quite a bit of information about where the skull was located).
I'll mention one more thing. If the winds and rains were enough to dislodge and move a relatively intact skeleton, then other things were moving too (rocks much greater than fist size; along with granite-based erosive materials - like being in a rock polisher, IMO). All of this would move/flow together - until it plunged down those washes; it's very odd that the skull is just sitting atop a variety of rocks, not buried in any way - not broken by interacting with other 3-4 lb objects in such an intense event - enough to move bones/bodies in such a way).
It's possible that all this happened. To two people who ended up not far from each other, and with one of them - their bones still in relative positions to each other, with clothing still present.
IMO.