Crop circles?

[smoke_jumper]

Ok, I'm at a loss on this one. As I was walking by I thought it looked like someone set down a 5 gallon bucket. I turned around and the only prints were my own. Why would this be spinning. I'm thinking its from underground but I didn't see much evidence of that either.

 

[pinelandpaddler]

That be by wind. More natural symmetry!

 

[smoke_jumper]

Makes sense. I was thinking of that stone too since I knew this was naturally made too

 

[smoke_jumper]

I can't believe I didn't think of wind

 

[Spung-Man]

The technical term is "scratch circles." A colleague wrote about them. The abstract says, "The present paper provides a report on the formation of scratch circles on the drift sands during the deposition and deflation phases of sand dune formation. Observations were carried out on dune fields in western Finland, central and southwestern Sweden."

Seppälä M. 1972. Some remarks on the formation of scratch circles on wind-blown sand. Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland. 44: 131–132

http://www.geologinenseura.fi/bulletin/Volume44/sgs_bt_044_2_pages_131_132.pdf
​

Matti, now retired, wrote the only English-language monograph on cold climate dunes. It is a favorite book of mine.

Seppälä M. 2004. Wind as a Geomorphic Agent in Cold Climates. Studies in Polar Research,Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 358 pp. ​

S-M

 

[Spung-Man]

Now if it's a genuine Pineland's crop circle you fancy, that world-famous feature was through the woods right outside my front door:

http://www.timesunion.com/news/slideshow/Pi-Day-World-s-most-famous-circles-40484/photo-2619464.php​