Strange shapes in the USA [Archive] - Google Earth Hacks Forums

jjcmontana

07-15-2006, 01:08 AM

Wow, would you believe, of all the people in the world, I would be one to see your posting? As you can probably tell from my username, I am from Montana. I lived there for nearly 25 years. The "shape" you are seeing is outside of Fort Peck Reservoir. I have been there many times. What it is that you are looking at is agriculture based. Due to the drain on different soil nutrients by different crops, it is a common occurance for farmers to rotate what they grow each year so the soil can replenish itself. However, Montana has a small problem with that. The soil isn't too good to begin with, and we suffer severely cold winters with a very short growing season. Because of this, the main agricultural crop grown in Montana is wheat. LOTS and LOTS of wheat. Some strains of the grain can be continuessly planted in the same plot, year after year, while others need that break from one year to the next. That explains the "banding" of the fields you see to the left of the concentric circles. The circles, on the other hand, are shaped that way because of the landscape. If the farmer continued the banding method, he'd end up with stretches of crop perhaps only 100 feet long in places, and uneven at each end. This creates a problem when harvesting with a combine. However, by creating the shape he did, he maximized the space, and can easily harvest it by simply going continuessly forward until each "circle" has been cut. In fact, if you zoom closer to the bands, you will see each band is actually a serious of elongated circles as well. In the darker bands where there is no crop, you can still faintly make out the harvesting circle shapes from what may have been last year's harvest.

I know that's a long answer, but I hope it helps remove any question from your mind. Here is another example of banding I was able to locate, and another "design" in Montana that I actually CAN'T identify.