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Not far from the Grand Canyon , near a watershed hollo Vulcan ’s Throne , the solid ground is scatter with strange , devoid circles , visible from electron orbit .
Evidence of an alien encounter ? Nope . The likely culprit is actually ants — a stack of them . So many that the scientists who discover them are referring to the expanse as " the Las Vegas of ants . "
This weird polka-dot pattern in the vegetation near a volcano on the rim of the Grand Canyon could be the work of red harvester ants.
Physicist Amelia Carolina Sparavigna , a specialiser in image processing and satellite imagery depth psychology at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy , noticed the bizarre polka- point feature while studying the dimension of the Grand Canyon rim in Google Earth . In a valley near the clinker cone volcano Vulcan ’s Throne , on the canon ’s North Rim , Sparavigna saw filth set , irregularly spaced in the scrubby desert flora . [ picture of the Ant Circles and Other Strange Sights on Google Earth ]
" I know that model vegetation can be create by competition between plants and fauna , and that , in Namibia , there is a patterned vegetation create by colony of insects , " Sparavigna told Live Science , referring toNamibia ’s famous " fairy circles . “Those odd free circles in Namibia might be the work of sand termite , thoughscientists dissent on the true culprit . Other theories include hydrocarbon seeps , ants , and below - ground contender between locoweed for water .
Sparavigna suspects that the Arizona circles have a simpler explanation . The desert around the Grand Canyon is dwelling to red harvester emmet ( Pogonomyrmex barbatus ) , which can ramp up nesting mounds 47 in ( 120 centimeters ) in diam . These pile are often surrounded by up to 108 hearty human foot ( 10 solid meters ) of bare ground , Sparavigna wrote in a paperposted online on Jan. 11 .
The polka-dot pattern, possibly formed from ant mounds, is barely visible in this Google Earth image.
The paper has not been peer - retrospect , and Sparavigna is straightaway to note that it will take more than an centre in the sky to confirm that the bare pane are ant mounds .
" It is quite in all probability that the observed pattern flora can have its blood line from the interaction of vegetation and ants , but an on - site investigation is necessary to be sure of it , " she said .
The dots were n’t visible in 2008 orbiter images , Sparavigna wrote in her paper , but Google Earth has since sharpen its focal point on Earth ’s Earth’s surface with higher - resolution images Such imaging can allow for ecologists with a impression of how organisms are interact over time , Sparavigna told Live Science .
ant are n’t the only surprising creature life seeable on Google Earth . A high - resoluteness patch of imagery at 10.903497 N,19.93229 E ( in Chad ) shows a herd of elephant grazing on a grassland . prehistorical " geoglyphs , " or vast blueprint made of rock , are also seeable on Google Earth imagination , includinghuge spoked wheel in Jordanandrings and crosses in Kazakhstan .
Sometimes , though , Google Earth imagery can flim-flam the eye . A data artifact in Google Ocean IE sparked rumor of Atlantis in 2009 because some user mistook the grid radiation pattern for recessed city street . ( The artifacthas since been removed . ) And a Manhattan - sizing " island " in the South Pacific turned out not to exist ( it was a digital carryover mistake from amistaken sighting of an islandon conventional maps ) .
