'Fairy Circles' Of Africa Baffle Scientists

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'Fairy Circles' Of Africa

Baffle Scientists

By Tim Butcher

The Telegraph - UK

5-9-4

 

WOLWEDANS CAMP -- One of Africa's most mysterious natural phenomena

still cannot be explained despite 25 years of research, scientists

admitted yesterday.

 

Rings known as "fairy circles" that pockmark vast areas of desert in

Namibia and South Africa have baffled botanists from the University

of Pretoria and the Polytechnic of Namibia.

 

They have ruled out termite activity, poisoning from toxic

indigenous plants, contamination from radioactive minerals and even

ostrich dust baths as possible causes.

 

"At this stage I suppose we could say that fairies are as good an

explanation as any," Gretel van Rooyen, professor of botany at

Pretoria, told The Telegraph.

 

The findings will come as a relief to the region's bushmen who have

traditionally attributed magical, spiritual powers to these desert

rings.

 

Some tribes say each marks the grave of a bushman killed in clashes

with colonialists, both black and white, who over the centuries have

wiped out their hunter-gatherer, nomadic lifestyle.

 

And there is something other-worldly about the circles at Wolwedans

desert camp in Namibia, perhaps the best place to see the

phenomenon. The symmetrical divots in the sand stretch as far as the

eye can see across vast, open plains like a giant terrestrial form

of chickenpox or, as one Austrian holidaymaker put it, like splash

marks from giant raindrops.

 

Such figurative thoughts were far from the minds of Prof van Rooyen

and her team when they began to analyse the circles, which are to be

found about 100 miles inland, in a band stretching 1,500 miles south

from Angola. The territory is among the most remote and inhospitable

on the planet which may explain why so little scientific research

had been done on the rings.

 

In 1978 a long-term project was started when researchers hammered

metal stakes into the centre of numerous circles. It had always been

assumed the circles moved and the stakes would show how far and in

what direction.

 

When the researchers eventually returned to the test circles after

22 years, they found they had not moved an inch.

 

"That showed these things are not dynamic and so we then focused on

what characteristics of the desert soil might explain less growth in

some places and good growth in others," Prof van Rooyen said.

 

"But one by one we tested the theories and one by one they were

disproved."

 

Received wisdom was that termites caused the circles, foraging from

underground nests the same distance and keeping a patch of desert

clear of any new growth.

 

But the scientists showed that the right foraging habits of the only

termites in the region did not fit this theory.

 

Samples of soil from the circles were then taken back to Pretoria

for analysis. "We did all the basic soil tests for nutrients and

minerals but found no explanation," Prof van Rooyen said.

 

The findings of her team's research was published in a 19-page

article in The Journal of Arid Environments.

 

"What we need to do now is more research on the detailed breakdown

of that soil using a mass spectrometer to find out what is different

about that soil, she said.

 

"Until that research is completed in a few more years, the fairies

remain the best explanation for this African quirk of nature."

 

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