Scientists at the University of Göttingen (Germany) have finally solved the mystery of the witch's circles in the Namibian desert and the arid regions of Australia. According to the results of scientific work published in the Journal of Arid Environment, bare soil spots are indeed formed due to the peculiarities of soil moisture, and not due to the activity of termites, as a number of experts still believe.
Researchers examined several circles near Newman in western Australia, making 154 depressions over 12 kilometers. It turned out that inside each circle, the layers of clay were at the same levels, and there were no signs of termite activity. Drone mapping data showed that clear signs of insect damage to vegetation were weakly correlated with patches of bare ground.
In addition, scientists have found similar structures by analyzing images from Google Earth. Some of them were more than 20 meters wide, which exceeded the diameter of 12 meters typical for witch circles. Some patches of bare ground were elongated and located in unusual places like highways. However, all of them were characterized by weak moisture.
Namibian witch circles are roughly equidistant circles of bare earth surrounded by grasses. They are arranged in hexagons on a scale of less than 50 meters, and are also evenly distributed in the space of larger scales. According to one of the versions, they arise as a result of the process of self-organization, when precipitation, falling on glades, flows to the surrounding grass and stimulates its growth. However, until recently, the most influential hypothesis explaining the origin of the "witch's circles" was considered to be thermite.
