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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 08/31/2009 : 17:17:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by tw101356
I'm betting those regular lines are part of an ancient, or maybe just a few hundred year old, irrigation system fed by qanats. Fifty feet apart would be a reasonable distance for the underground feeder lines. Though long abandoned, they could still be providing some moisture and causing a difference in the appearance of the terrain. Could also be that they just show up as a disruption in the desert flora in the same fashion that old, plowed-under, roads can be viewed in aerial photos of farmland. The regular pattern of "dots" could be the feeder wells for the qanats. |
I've been finding qanat mounds and shafts all over the deserts of Iran and Afghanistan. You can find them looking like little anthills spaced apart regularly in a line. Many are probably defunct. Qanats are fascinating. Ancient technology that transformed the human biosphere over several continents. There once were entire legions of engineers who specialized in designing, building and maintaining qanat systems.
But I don't see the surface lines we're discussing as relating to irrigation. The lines go more or less straight, down across dry wadis and over the hillocks between them. Looking at the edges of the patterned areas, I see no difference between the areas between the lines and the adjoining non-patterned area.
Nor do the lines seem to be furrows through which water might flow. They seem more like the Nasca lines, made by moving aside dark rocks to expose the lighter soil.
I'm still puzzled.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
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