Fairy Circles are arid grass formations seen in the grasslands of Australia and Namibia. The circular, extremely ordered barren patches of land and grasses was studied by a group of ecologists (people who study ecology – the science of relationships between plants, animals, people, and their environment). They were surprised to find that it was engineered by the grasses themselves. Can you believe that?
The dry conditions and the occasional heavy rains pound the coarse sand on the surface into fine silt and clay. The clay acts like a plug between the grains of sand, sealing off the surface. So, after a couple of hard rains, a crust of clay is formed. The rain water, rather than penetrating the clay, runs off this crust, and creates an oasis at the edges where grasses make their home. So, it is a self-fulfilling cycle. It is an example of Turing mechanism (it is a type of pattern formation first identified by English mathematician Alan Turing, in which spotted or striped patterns arise naturally from the interaction of two substances).
The researchers monitored the fairy circles by setting up a weather station and soil-monitoring equipment about an inch beneath the barren and vegetated parts of the landscape. It proved that these fairy circles result from the way plants organise themselves in response to water shortage.