Mysterious fairy circles discovered in Australian outback

By Jenni Ryall From Mashable

A mysterious landscape phenomenon known as fairy circles has been found in the Australian outback.

The fairy circles are characterised by a hexagonal organisation of soil gaps between grass vegetation and seen in the landscape from above. The beautiful sight cannot be spotted from ground level.

Until now, fairy circles have only been documented in the arid landscape of Namibia, Africa. On Monday, a group of researchers released a report saying they had now located the same formations in the Australian outback in the Pilbara region.

Fairy circles

“Here we report that so far unknown fairy circles with the same spatial structure exist 10,000 kilometres away from Namibia in the remote outback of Australia,” the report reads.

How the circles came to be is the source of much debate for almost a century, with African bushmen believing they are the footprints of the gods or a dragon lives under the Earth and breathes bubbles.

More modern theories include termites being behind the circles, or poisonous vegetation or radioactive contamination killing off the plant life. All of these hypothesis have been dismissed in recent times, according to the BBC.

The discovery of the Australian fairy circles, researchers say in the latest report, shows the phenomenon is due to thirsty plants organising themselves in an effort to source water in a dry landscape.

“These observations are in line with a central universality principle of pattern-formation theory and support the applicability of this theory to wider contexts of spatial self-organization in ecology,” the report states.

This theory was also researched by Michael Cramer and Nichole Barger in 2013, with the duo coming to a similar conclusion. This would align with the new discovery in the dry Australian desert, a similar environment to Namibia.

Researchers report the discovery of fairy circles in the western Australian outback that are nearly identical to those found in southwestern Africa (shown in photo).

“Ecologists are increasingly realising that distinct vegetation patterns are a population-level consequence of competition for scarce water,” Stephan Getzin from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany, who co-authored the report, told the ABC.

The researchers used fieldwork, remote sensing, spatial pattern analysis along with mathematical modelling to map the landscape and understand the exciting natural occurrence.

“Today, scientists mostly find very small animals such as a new insect or amphibian species in the rainforest, cryptic deep-sea animals, or new galaxies in outer space,” Getzin added. “Discoveries like the Australian fairy circles are extremely rare, which makes the current study tremendously exciting.”

Fairy circles.

The cause of this unique phenomenon has led to much debate.

IMAGES:
Fairy circles in the Western Australian outback near Newman.
Image: Kevin Sanders/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
A fairy circle in the Western Australian outback. Image: Stephan Getzin / AP Images
Image: Stephan Getzin/AP Images
Image: Frans Lanting/Corbis
Image: Frans Lanting/Corbis Namibia,
The stunning fairy circles in Namibia.
Image: Richard Du Toit / MINDEN PICTURES Namibia Fairy circles in Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia.

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