Mysterious Stripes Spotted Over Russia In Satellite Images

[maximus otter]

Near the Markha River in Arctic Siberia, the earth ripples in ways that scientists don't fully understand.

Earlier this week, NASA researchers posted a series of satellite images of the peculiar wrinkled landscape to the agency's Earth Observatory website. Taken with the Landsat 8 satellite over several years, the photos show the land on both sides of the Markha River rippling with alternating dark and light stripes. The puzzling effect is visible in all four seasons, but it is most pronounced in winter, when white snow makes the contrasting pattern even more stark.

One possible explanation is written in the icy ground. This region of the Central Siberian Plateau spends about 90% of the year covered in permafrost, though it occasionally thaws for brief intervals. Patches of land that continuously freeze, thaw and freeze again have been known to take on strange circular or stripy designs called patterned ground. The effect occurs when soils and stones naturally sort themselves during the freeze-thaw cycle.

Another possible explanation is erosion. Thomas Crafford, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told NASA that the stripes resemble a pattern in sedimentary rocks known as layer cake geology.

https://www.space.com/stripe-pattern-arctic-siberia-mystery

maximus otter

 

[Xanatic*]

Yep, looks a lot like exposed geological layers with the kind of symmetry you see.

 

[GNC]

I suspect we'll see more of these as the Arctic thaws.

 

[Sid]

Near the Markha River in Arctic Siberia, the earth ripples in ways that scientists don't fully understand.

View attachment 40036​

Reminds me of making a layer map of an area from an ordinance survey map, where each height layer was gradually built up to form a visual land image! (with the above erosion process, this would be in reverse)
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