How Old Are Termite Mounds?
WouterTermite mounds are gigantic piles of dirt built by insects. The mounds are made up of four to six percent clay, nine to ten percent silt, and twenty to forty percent sand. The mounds are at least 10 feet tall and twenty feet wide. They have thin buttress-like chimneys around the central core.
They are a testament to the extraordinary engineering of insects. Termites have created more than two and a half cubic miles of dirt in their underground tunnel systems. They are the largest single insect-generated ecosystem engineering project ever recorded. These colossal mounds are the size of 4,000 Great Pyramids.
Researchers discovered these gigantic mounds in northeastern Brazil. The mounds are a testament to the hard work of termites over thousands of years. During ancient times, termites excavated a large network of underground tunnels.
Soil samples were collected from 11 mound centers. The results showed that the mounds were constructed between 690 and 3820 years ago. The oldest sample was 3,820 years old.
The Brazilian mounds are the biggest collection of termite-built structures known to date. They are a testament to the hard work of single species of termites. The collection covers eighty-eight thousand square miles, roughly the same size as Great Britain.
Some termite species can build mounds as high as twenty-six feet. These are called conical termite mounds. They are giant piles of soil without any defined internal architecture. These mounds are visible on Google Earth.
