{"id":854,"date":"2012-03-08T22:47:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T21:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=854"},"modified":"2025-06-19T17:13:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:13:45","slug":"namibian-fairy-circles-mystery-solved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=854","title":{"rendered":"Namibian fairy circles &#8211; mystery solved?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There&#8217;s an odd phenomenon in southern Africa &#8211; especially in Namibia &#8211; that the locals call &#8220;fairy circles&#8221;, whereby vegetation refuses to grow inside a circle of anywhere from 3 to 10 meters in diameter.&nbsp; Even stranger, the circles are dynamic &#8211; apparently they grow and &#8220;die&#8221;, to be filled in by grasses.&nbsp; While they are active, seedlings will sometimes take root inside the circle, but they eventually wither and die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are a photo and a video so you can see what I&#8217;m talking about.&nbsp; The video should start 6:40 in, where the fairy circles show up.&nbsp; If it doesn&#8217;t, fast forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Image_2012124230450.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Image_2012124230450.jpg?resize=1024%2C682&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-857\" title=\"Image_2012124230450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Image_2012124230450.jpg?resize=1024%2C682&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Image_2012124230450.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Image_2012124230450.jpg?w=2000&amp;ssl=1 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sesriem to the Sea (Sossusvlei by Air)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bmWRtj-Llls?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Up until now, there has been no scientific explanation for the phenomenon.&nbsp; At least three hypotheses have been suggested (in the early 1970s), but all have been disproven thus far (by South African scientist Gretel van Rooyen):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The soil is (for some reason) radioactive.\u00a0 This was disproven by simply sending in the soil for testing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The soil is toxic due to\u00a0residue left behind by the milkbush plant &#8211; <em>Euphorbia damarana<\/em>.\u00a0This was proven by successfully growing plants in soil taken from areas where milkbush plants are growing.\u00a0 They grew without any trouble.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The third option was termites.\u00a0 People thought termites might simply be keeping the area clean of all plant debris, preventing growth.\u00a0 So van Rooyen dug up some areas down to 2 meters, and found no termites &#8211; another theory debunked.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, her experiments strongly suggested <em>something<\/em> was toxic in the soil.&nbsp; But what, and how did it get there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now for the latest.&nbsp; Apparently University of Pretoria researcher Yvette Naude, working with van Rooyen&nbsp;found traces of substances that suggest the culprit may be gases (hydrocarbons) seeping up from the ground underneath.&nbsp; It seems there are gases seeping up and not only displacing the oxygen in the ground, but also changing the chemistry of the soil in such a way that plants cannot grow there.&nbsp; At least temporarily.&nbsp; It&#8217;s all detailed in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0140196310003563\">Journal of Arid Environments article<\/a>.&nbsp; If you happen to speak Afrikaans, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.republikein.com.na\/politiek-en-nasionale\/algemeen\/fesirkels-se-geheim-ontrafel.144306.php\">today&#8217;s Die Republikein.<\/a>&nbsp; Mystery solved!&nbsp; Or is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless, the researcher did caution that this doesn&#8217;t mean we should all start drilling for oil under the Namib desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s an odd phenomenon in southern Africa &#8211; especially in Namibia &#8211; that the locals call &#8220;fairy circles&#8221;, whereby vegetation refuses to grow inside a circle of anywhere from 3 to 10 meters in diameter.&nbsp; Even stranger, the circles are dynamic &#8211; apparently they grow and &#8220;die&#8221;, to be filled in by grasses.&nbsp; While they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[339,70],"tags":[485,483,484,486,1794],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-namibia","category-random-musings","tag-desert-plants","tag-fairy-circles","tag-mystery","tag-namib-desert","tag-namibia"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5872,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions\/5872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}