Mysterious Electrified Rings of Stunted Tree Growth in Northern Ontario!

It is a strange phenomenon: thousands of large, perfectly round "forest rings" dot the boreal landscape of northern Ontario.

From the air, these mysterious light-colored rings of stunted tree growth are clearly visible, but on the ground, you could walk right through them without noticing them. They range in diameter from 30 meters to 2 kilometers, with the average ring measuring about 91 meters across. Over 2,000 of these forest rings have been documented, but scientists estimate the actual number is more than 8,000.

What causes these near-perfect circles in the forest?

the electrical field found inside the forest rings is a puzzle that needs to be solved.

"It shouldn't be there ... [s]omething is creating a huge electrical field ..."

According to Hamilton, the forest rings are caused by giant, naturally occurring electrochemical cells — big centers of negative charges (called reduced chimneys) that are frequently situated over metal or mineral deposits or methane (a natural gas source).

Think of them as huge natural electrical batteries with a negative charge in carbonate soil and surrounded by oxygen that carries a positive charge. The current from the batteries — the negative charge — travels outward and where it meets the positive charge, acidic conditions are created that eat away at the carbonate soil, causing it to drop in a circular depression around the natural battery.

[W]e think it might be millions of chemical-eating micro-organisms in the soil."

...

"Our hypothesis is that with the forest rings, millions of micro-organisms are creating a massive, low-voltage electrical field that causes their food, the chemicals, to come forward to them. The bacteria don't have to move - the food keeps coming to them along the electrical field they have created," explained Hamilton.

In the boreal forests of Northern Ontario and Quebec, more than 2,000 large-scale forest ring features have been found during the course of aerial photographic surveys. What causes them has been the subject of speculation since they were observed in the very first aerial surveys conducted of the region decades ago. Since the 1990s, they have been the subject of detailed ground-based research investigations. Present research indicates that there are complex electrochemical reactions between underlying metallic ore bodies and the overlying limestone, creating shallow ring-shaped depressions at the surface.

The photograph shows one of these rings. It's located in a remote transitional forest-muskeg region almost exactly at latitude 50 degrees 30 minutes north and longitude 85 degrees 00 minutes west -- about 15 miles (24 km) north of the Kenogami River. This particular ring is approximately 1 kilometer in diameter. The trees are primarily black spruce, and in the ring area they have been observed to be more stunted and thin out, a characteristic of locally poorer drainage conditions. The yellowish color of the surface is sphagnum moss.

The purpose of this project was to determine the proportion of “forest rings” within a large study area (Figure 1) that are attributable to methane (natural gas) accumulation. Forest rings are large, circular features (50 m to 2 km in diameter) identified in the boreal forests of Ontario and other regions of Ontario that are visible due to a change in vegetation around the edge of the ring. They are permanent features on the ground and were observed by geologists and foresters when air photos first became available about 50 years ago. Numerous theories have been put forward as to their origin and anecdotes describe them being drilled by geologists, who thought they were kimberlites, or being identified for land use protection by biologists, who thought they were biological features. Biological theories were put to rest by Veillette and Giroux (1999), who demonstrated conclusively that they are geological features characterized by: (1) a slight depression in the mineral soil around the rim of the ring, usually filled with peat; and (2) their occurrence only in terrain where a significant component of carbonate exists in the shallow soils. This led to a model (Hamilton, 2000a; Figure 2) that accounted for their presence by proposing they were geological centers of negative charge. Subsequent work has proven this (Hamilton 2000a&b, Hamilton and Cranston 2000, Hamilton and Cranston 2001). Two sites investigated in detail between 2000 and 2003 were determined to be sourced by (1) natural gas and (2) dissolved hydrogen sulphide, both of which are highly reduced. Work this summer involved satellite image reconnaissance and inventory of rings within the study area; cutting helicopter pads and lines on 11 sites; and the measurement of ambient methane over the rings vs. outside them using a laser spectral absorbance gas detector. Other measurements were made and gas was collected at 1 site for carbon and oxygen isotopic identification of the source of methane.

Summary and Conclusions
A 150 000 km study area in northeastern Ontario was examined using satellite image reconnaissance and approximately 1600 forest rings were identified. Comparison with another proprietary database of rings obtained using air-photo reconnaissance suggests far more rings exist within this area than those that can be identified using Landsat images. Rings are twice as likely to form over Phanerozoic rocks as Precambrian and at least 6 times more likely to overlie Pleistocene glaciomarine sands than in the study area as a whole. A laser spectral absorbance instrument and a photo ionization detector both suggest that the majority of rings in northeastern Ontario are methane-sourced. The source of methane at one of the rings (R0, the “Bean” ring) has been determined using carbon isotopes to be biogenic reduction of CO2, probably by organic matter in the clay tills. It appears that vapour-phase methane occurs within sand lenses in the till and that it is derived from burial and anoxic decomposition of organic matter within the original lake sediments or till. The nature of that organic matter is at present still a mystery. The much greater preponderance of rings in and around glaciomarine sand units suggests a biogenic source in these areas too. Pleistocene marine organic matter, possibly including plankton, may have been entrained within the sediments resulting in later accumulation of methane in the sands. A deeper, perhaps thermogenic source of gas is suggested in several other areas. Linear occurrences of rings, all of the same size occurs in many areas near the Phanerozoic / Precambrian boundary. A large circle of rings 100 km across and centred on Jog Lake appears not to be associated with marine conditions and many of the rings occur in linear clusters that appear to radiate outward from an area centred on Jog Lake. Further work is proposed for the next field season that includes collecting methane samples from some of these rings to determine the source of gas. The occurrence of forest rings as an indicator of methane has implications for natural gas exploration. Not only are they indicators of possibly deeper sources of gas but many are large enough in themselves to possibly be considered as reservoirs of natural gas. The shallow biogenic production of methane from organics in marine sediments has implications for current methane hydrate research being conducted in offshore areas. The release of large amounts of non-peat related gas also has important implications for climate change.