====== 'Fairy circles' (ecology) ======

//'Fairy circles' //are distinct surface topology features found at various geographical locations - notably in arid areas of Namibia and Australia - where many thousands of examples have been recorded.

As the name suggests, they tend to be roughly-circular patches of land - but with no growing plants in the centres. They often have a thin border formed by tougher grass growth. They vary between 2 and 12 meters in diameter - large enough to show up on satellite imagery ([[https://copernix.io/#?where=15.686526341937078,-24.137878504925276,19&?query=&?map_type=hybrid|example]])

They were first described ( by the 'Western' scientific community) in the 1980s ([[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022461816301802|ref.]]{{:oa_padlock_grn.png?16}}//South African Journal of Botany,// Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. 69-74)

Since then, various theories about their mode of formation have been put forward - but to date there is no agreed explanation. Theories include :

  * Action by termites
  * Fungal outgrowing
  * Radioactive soil
  * Plant toxins
  * Water-use feedback loops involving grasses
  * Toxic gas emissions

//Note:// A 2023 study used AI tech. to scan existing satellite imagery for similar structures, and found evidence of fairy-circle-like formations at 263 sites in 15 different countries. ([[https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2304032120|ref.]]). The authors do not, however, offer further theories about their formation, or confirm that they are identical structures to those seen in Namibia and Australia,