| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
12 Apr 2007 02:06:14 PM |
| Object: |
Ancient mega-lake discovered in Darfur |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18059416/
Ancient mega-lake discovered in Darfur
Pool of water estimated to have sprawled over nearly 12,000 square miles
By Jeanna Bryner
Live Science Staff Writer
Updated: 3:30 p.m. ET April 11, 2007
Scientists using radar techniques have peeled away the sandy cloak
blanketing Darfur’s parched landscape to reveal an ancient basin that
once housed a mega-lake larger than Lake Erie.
“When you go into these deserts and you look at the land, it’s so dry
and lifeless you think there has never been anything alive there. Then
you look in the past, and you see there were rivers and lakes,” said
study team member Farouk El-Baz, director of Boston University Center
for Remote Sensing.
Dubbed the Northern Darfur Mega-lake, the large pool of water is
estimated to have sprawled over nearly 12,000 square miles during its
heyday, with 600 cubic miles of water when filled to the brim.
Hidden pool
El-Baz and his colleague Eman Ghoneim, also of the Center for Remote
Sensing, discovered the lake by analyzing images from the satellite
Radarsat, which used radar waves to penetrate the fine-grained sand in
western Sudan, revealing the hidden contours of the lake basin and
surrounding rivers.
They also collected elevation information, finding that segments of the
lake’s shoreline are about 1,900 feet above sea level. With the data,
they were able to reconstruct what the lake and the rivers that emptied
into it may have looked like in the past.
This reconstruction will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the
International Journal of Remote Sensing.
Water savers
The watery find sheds light on the past climate in the Sahara region.
While the researchers are not sure of the lake’s age, its substantial
size suggests it was around for a long while, fed by plentiful rainfall.
“This ancient lake, which represents indisputable evidence of the past
rainy conditions in the eastern Sahara, will have significant
consequences for improving our knowledge of continental climate change
and regional paleo-hydrology,” Ghoneim said.
The scientists had previously discovered a similar lake basin just tens
of miles north of the one-time Darfur lake. They found artifacts such as
hunting knives and axes in the area, suggesting the region was a
savannah-like environment where humans once lived. The scientists think
the Northern Darfur Mega-lake might have once been a similar habitat.
Though the lake has since dried up, its water likely percolated into the
surrounding sand and is now part of the groundwater. Maps of the ancient
lake could help with groundwater exploration efforts in the Darfur
region, where access to fresh water is both scarce and essential for
refugee survival.
“The likelihood of groundwater to exist in huge amounts is almost
certain, so why not explore it for groundwater to help these refugees
and the people who live in Darfur?” El-Baz told LiveScience.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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