Strange patterns on UK Moors

Does anyone know what these are on UK Moors?

Some kind of ecological grass/heather(?) (green mass) - harvesting and/or grazing as far as I suspect...
Check boundary of a patch on Web-GE SV! 

Probably some experiment considering that there are at least three different patterns (chessboard, patchy, and long parallel rows of triangular somethings) can be found on these heather moorlands. 

I will look into it until waiting for other's explanations.


web-GE link

Very good spotting! Have not seen such an interesting find for a long time!

Welcome to the community!

G

P. S. : What kind of digital map is that you use btw? Is that online, accessible for the public? 

Thank you for your response. I used Google Earth and simply pinned the location. Yes it is all for the public to see.

It was on an iPad Pro. These patterns are all over high ground of England and some parts of Wales. They appear old and the moors are an unforgiving place, weather isn’t great and the ground can be tricky too. These patterns stretch over swaths of land it’s pretty interesting and intriguing. I am yet to meet someone who actually knows what they all are. I was thinking maybe an ancient settlement, Celts as one area is close to a druids temple. Maybe even Roman. It could even be something from when Doggerland was flooded. People back then could have fled to higher ground too afraid to be any lower in case it happened again. Clearly that is a theory and I understand the verdict is out there. With the moors and high places been unforgiving are sometimes over looked when it comes to human habitation.

No way these are ancient (or even historical) features.

As I have checked GE TimeSlider, now I am pretty sure this is an eco-agricultural practice. Something like sustainable forestry, developed for conservation and to save biodiversity by rejecting clear-cuts and favoring patchy cultivation.

Check cover change as the result of the altered land-use practices between 2003 and 2019:

[slide captionposition="1" wrapperstyle="padding:10px 0;border-top:2px solid #eee;border-bottom:2px solid #eee;"]https://res.cloudinary.com/syzygy/image/upload/v1630910613/UK_moors_2003_rkkvtg.jpg
2003
res.cloudinary.com/syzygy/image/upload/v1630910613/UK_moors_2019_hhsvas.jpg
2019[/slide]


still waiting for verification (or rebuttal)...

I don’t know if you are familiar with the moors however hardly anything grows and there altitude is always above 300m with these patterns. Bronze Age people lived on the Morris way back then. Had I have thought this was agricultural I would not have even posted these photos. This area has not been touched in since never. These particular patterns are only the north York moors and the Pennines. They are not in Cumbria there are brief patterns in Dartmoor. The terrain is only accessible by foot in almost all the areas. It’s as wild as you get in the Uk. The ares never grow any higher then knee or waist height. They are not tree level. And their is has no use to anyone. Even wild life don’t graze on it just the grass that is near by. 

Land grazed by sheep is also possible ...

GM-Link

Sept 6, 2021 8:34:27 GMT willi1 said:

Land grazed by sheep is also possible ...

Exactly! Can be some kind of rotational grazing where temporairly grazed plots are surrounded by "electric shepherd".


(?)...

Hi, All, 

I think this is to do with experimental restoration of the habitat; removing bracken and ferns (which don't help wildlife or plant diversity) and reintroducing various heathers, bilberries, mosses etc.  From what I can see it's using different techniques to clear the bracken (herbicides and controlled burning of small areas), which may explain the chequerboard appearance of the moor.

See this page.




Cheers,

Frank