The mysterious forest rings

Thousands of large, perfectly round "forest rings" dot the boreal landscape of northern Ontario.

Viewed from above, these strange light colored rings of stunted tree growth are clearly visible, but on the ground, you could walk right through them and not even notice.

What are they? What is their purpose? And how were they made?

Source

[edit on 5-6-2008 by SuperSlovak]

Impact craters from meteorites and other earth impacting objects.


These are from a time when the land was pulverised by impacts, and the grass and fauna grew back till all you could see and can see is from the air.

Those are only theories, they think it could have been.
Whats with the strage force cominng from the forest rings?

The angle of impact creates that tear dropped or circular crater shape. Erosion and time takes its toll and life grows back over it. The ejected material of the more slanting impacts creates that sprayed effect.

Hope that helps, Dan.

I would say by the positioning of the rings, especially in the second photo would almost certainly rule out impact craters.
If these were old crater sites, they would have been seen long before now. I'm not a geologist, but I worked with one in the environmental drilling field for 3 years, so I know a little bit about these things.
Now, I'm not saying they are alien landing sites either. They could be sinkholes forming, old lake beds filled with sediment, etc. Only a test of the soil and sample cores from beneath would verify anything subjectively. But I have drilled in craters, notably the big, old ones in Iowa and Nebraska and these sir, are no craters I have ever seen before.

What about fungi? Very large networks of fungus below the ground are pretty common and some fungi do produce a ring structure.

maybe something similar to these:

astralscooter.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

but a species as yet unidentified by science producing vastly bigger rings.

Hi Superslovak! nice images


Ontario Geological Survey map of documented forest rings in Northern Ontario. Note that the size of the rings on the map is to show the distribution of different-sized rings, they are not proportional to the map scale. (Courtesy Ontario Geological Survey)

Forest rings” have been an enigma for 50 years since they were first identified in air photos of northern Canada. They usually occur as large, near-perfect circles in boreal forest that range in diameter from 30 m to almost 2 km. They are not the product of glacial processes, but are post-depositional, nor do they result from paludification of lakes or meteorite impact. Clusters of similarly-sized rings are common and sometimes form linear trends in the direction of presumed geological structure.

Similar structures occur in farm fields in southern Ontario, although the only feature they have in common with the popular “crop circles” is their shape. They do not form suddenly but are permanent features in both forest and field

A strong depletion of carbonate occurs in soils underlying the rim of the ring, which supports the OGS theory that the rings are centres of negative redox charge and form according to a published redox-gradient transport model developed to account for geochemical processes over mineral deposits and other reduced features.

The theory proposes that a chemically reduced source in bedrock or overburden maintains Fe in reduced form within the ring. Outward migration Fe2+ within a redox gradient followed by Fe oxidation at the edge of the ring, one of the products of which is H+, dissolves carbonate creating a physical depression in the mineral soil and a circular peaty area that is visible from the air.

Work is underway to understand the remarkable physical and chemical features associated with the rings including temperature anomalies, water level “bulges”, apparent magnetite formation and the metal mobility mechanism itself, which at first glance appears to contradict physics. It is estimated that > 80% of the 1600 rings identified in the study area have CH4 in overburden as the source of negative charge.

One ring is known to be H2S-sourced and other reduced sources are possible. In addition to their potential for indicating resources of economic interest, the rings are excellent case-study areas for redox anomalies in overburden. Similar “reduced chimneys” have been reported over mineral deposits, kimberlites and oil & gas fields and work carried out at the rings suggests that many of the geochemical phenomena documented over these features may be linked to redox-gradient transport and related secondary processes.

wendysreel.wordpress.com...

Ats thread www.abovetopsecret.com...