Sahara Desert: map, photo, description. Rock art in the Sahara desert. Amazing mushroom formations in the Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is one of largest deserts peace. The Sahara stretches across most of North Africa, covering 9 million square kilometers. In fact, the Sahara Desert occupies 30% of the entire African continent. It is the hottest and hottest place in the world with summer temperatures often exceeding 57 degrees Celsius. The desert receives an annual downpour and very powerful sandstorms that raise the sand 1000 meters in height and move the dunes.

We continue the theme of the deserts of Africa. In previous editions of LifeGlobe we told you about the White Desert in Egypt and the Namib Desert, but now it's time to talk about the Sahara. Some say that the Sahara Desert was much larger before the first ice age, and some say that the Sahara Desert appeared 4,000 years ago. For example, German scientists, using methods of computer modeling of the Earth's climate, found that the Sahara became a desert 4,000 years ago. 10 thousand years ago the most big desert the world was covered with grass and low shrubs, but then the summer became hotter, and the rains almost stopped. Naturally, many ancient civilizations disappeared, and all living things left the Sahara. According to scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, the transformation of the Sahara into a desert was one of the most dramatic climatic events on Earth in foreseeable millennia. Why is the climate so unstable? It turns out that the inclination of the earth's axis to the Sun is gradually changing: approximately 9 thousand years ago it was 24.14 degrees, now it is 23.45 degrees. Today, the Earth comes closest to the Sun in January, ten thousand years ago - at the end of July. Subtle changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, amplified by interactions with the atmosphere, ocean and land, are changing the climate beyond recognition.

The climate of the Sahara is extraordinary. The wet factor is the broad position of the Sahara north and south of the Tropic of the North. This explains the fact that most of desert throughout the year is under the influence of the northeast trade wind. An additional influence on the climate is exerted by the Atlas mountain barrier located in the north, elongated from west to east and preventing the main mass of humid Mediterranean air from penetrating into the desert. In the south, from the side of the Gulf of Guinea, wet masses freely enter the Sahara in summer, which, gradually drying up, reach it. central parts. The extreme dryness of the air, the enormous deficit of humidity, and, accordingly, the exceptionally high evapotranspiration are characteristic of the entire Sahara. According to the precipitation regime in the Sahara, three zones can be distinguished: northern, central and southern.

In the northern zone, precipitation falls in winter and their amount does not exceed 200 mm per year. To the south, their number decreases, and in the central zone they fall sporadically. Their average value does not exceed 20 mm. Sometimes there is no precipitation at all for 2-3 years. However, unexpected showers can occur in such areas, causing severe flood. The aridity of the Sahara also varies in the latitudinal direction, from west to east. On the Atlantic coast, heavy precipitation does not fall, since rare westerly winds are cooled by the Canary Current passing along the coast. Fogs are frequent here. On the tops of mountain ranges and highlands, the amount of precipitation slightly increases due to the condensation of water vapor. Sahara is distinguished by a high degree of evaporation. Its total annual value varies from 2500 to 5500 mm, which is more than 70 times the amount of precipitation.

The Sahara is characterized by high, one might say, record holders of air temperature. average temperature the coldest month - January, in almost all of the Sahara does not fall below 10 ° C. The average July temperature in the central part of the desert is 35 ° C. Temperatures above 50 ° C are noted in many places in the Sahara. The nights in the Sahara are cool, the temperature drops to 10-15 ° C. On the plains, the temperature rarely reaches minus 5 ° C. In the mountains, frosts are frequent. The daily amplitudes of air temperatures are very large - up to 30 ° C, and on the soil surface - up to 70 ° C. At the beginning of summer, hot sirocco winds blow in the north of the Sahara, which come from the central part of the desert. Strong winds cause dust and sand storms, the wind speed during a storm reaches 50 m/s. Masses of sand and small stones rise into the air, which greatly affect people and animals. Storms arise as suddenly as they end, leaving behind clouds of slowly settling dry dusty "fog". Tornadoes are also frequent in the Sahara.

The Sahara desert consists of one quarter volcanic mountains, one quarter sand, rocks and gravel plains, and small areas of permanent vegetation. Vegetation includes shrubs, grasses and trees in the highlands and in the oases along the riverbeds. Some of the plants are well adapted to this climate and grow within three days of rain, and sow their seeds within two weeks after that. Only a small part of the Sahara desert is fertile - these areas take moisture from underground rivers and oases.

SAHARA DESERT - INTERESTING FACTS.

The Sahara is the largest desert on Earth, with an area of ​​about 9 million km2, which is a little less area United States of America. Sahara is located in North Africa, on the territory of more than ten states (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan). The Sahara does not lend itself to categorization within a single desert type, although the sandy-stony type is predominant. Many regions are distinguished in the desert: Tenere, Great Eastern Erg, Great Western Erg, Tanezruft, Hamada el-Hamra, Erg Igidi, Erg Shesh, Arabian, Libyan, Nubian deserts. The name "Sahara" is an Arabic translation of the Tuareg word "tenere" meaning desert.

In 2008, an international team of scientists from Germany, Canada and the United States, as a result of research, found that the Sahara turned into a desert about 2,700 years ago as a result of a very slow climate evolution. Scientists managed to draw such conclusions based on the study of geological deposits raised from the depths of Lake Yoa, located in northern Chad. According to research results, about 6 thousand years ago, trees grew in the Sahara and there were many lakes. Thus, this work of scientists refutes the existing theory about the transformation of this part of Africa into a desert 5.5 thousand years ago and the fact that the desertification process took only a few centuries. About 160 thousand mirages are observed annually in the Sahara. They are stable and wandering, vertical and horizontal. Even special maps of caravan routes were compiled with an assessment of the places where mirages are usually observed. These maps indicate where wells, oases, palm groves, mountain ranges appear.

Sahara has a combined climate: subtropics and tropics.

The local conditions are practically unsuitable for human habitation, but the nomadic tribes (Tuareg and Teda) probably cannot imagine another life and feel great in the world's largest uninhabited territory.

Geographically, the Sahara is rocky. It includes underground rivers, which sometimes go outside, forming oases.

There are dunes that reach a height of up to 180 meters.

It may sound strange, but the peaks in the desert are covered with snow in winter. The eastern part of the Sahara, the Libyan Desert, is dry and has several oases.

The Sahara receives only 20 cm of rain per year. This is one of the reasons that only 2 million people live here.

During the last Ice Age, the desert was larger than it is now. The Sahara has one of the most brutal climates in the world. A predominantly northeasterly wind often leads to sandstorms.

In the desert there is the City of Tidikelt, which has not received a single drop of rain for ten years.

The average temperature in the Sahara is 30 degrees Celsius, and the maximum is 50 degrees, in winter the temperature often drops below zero;

Only a few animals can survive in the Desert - Camels, sand snakes, scorpions, monitor lizards.

About 500 species of flora survive here;

Amy Cussy is the most high point in the mountains of the Sahara. Its height is 3415 meters.

The territory of several states attractive for tourists covers that vast part of Africa (about 30%) where the Sahara Desert is located. Among these countries, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania stand out.

Sahara on the world map

The hottest desert the globe from north to south - 800 - 1,200 kilometers and from west to east - 4,800 kilometers.

According to various sources, the area of ​​Es-Sahra el-Kubra is 8.6 - 9.1 million square meters. kilometers. Scientists say that every year its area increases by several kilometers to the south.

Borders of the Sahara:

• the western part is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean,
• the northern region is framed by the Atlas Mountains, the Mediterranean Sea,
• eastern border runs along the Red Sea,
• the southern sand dunes form the transition to the Sudanese savannah.

The stereotypical view that the Sahara is the endless monotonous sands of the desert is erroneous. There are several regions:

Climate of the Sahara Desert

According to scientific research, the Sahara has become a desert natural area 5 million years ago. The following features are typical for the climate:

• percentage of relative humidity - 30-50;
• high evaporation;
• the presence of 2 types of climate: the northern part - dry subtropical, South part- dry tropical.

The northern region is characterized by a number of features:

• a high rate of annual temperature fluctuations is recorded;
• the temperature in the desert during the day and at night is also significant difference;
• winters are cool, summers are hot;
• average temperature level in winter is +13°С, in summer + 37.2°С;
• the rainiest months are August (frequent thunderstorms), December-March;
• spring is accompanied by multi-day hot winds, leading to dust storms.

The southern zone is characterized by:

• hot summer period,
• in winter, mild, dry weather, average temperatures do not differ from subtropical ones;
• minimum -15°C is stated;
• temperature indicator + 50 ° С maximum;
• rains are insignificant, more often in summer.

desert animals

The most arid regions have a poor diversity of animal life. The main areas of habitat are the central highlands. Most representatives of the animal world are unique in their kind, as they have adapted to the harsh conditions of the desert, often leading a nocturnal lifestyle.

Interesting. It is believed that the ancient Egyptians used the image of a horned viper to depict the hieroglyph "phi" due to the similarity of the sound it makes and the pronunciation of the hieroglyph. Snake charmers still use this species in their performances.

• Dromedary or one-humped camels are domesticated, serve for riding, transportation of goods. The hump, which stores a supply of fat, allows them to be hardy.
• The horned Saharan viper is a dangerous nocturnal venomous snake. It emits a continuous hiss to scare off enemies.
• Dorcas gazelle is an animal 65 centimeters high, weighing 25 kilograms, developing a speed of about 80 km / h. It survives due to its sand-colored camouflage coloration, as well as its ability to feed on dew and water-conserving plants. Feeling the approach of a predator, she instinctively jumps back, which serves as a warning to other animals.
• The mendes or addax antelope has a special structure of paws, which, on the one hand, helps to move on sandy soil, and on the other hand, it makes it difficult to avoid predators. On this moment habitat, the number of livestock is significantly reduced.
• Ostriches of the Sahara are isolated as a separate subspecies of African ostriches. Features of ostriches provide them with the opportunity to live in the desert: overcoming long distances at great speed (70 km / h), a high level of hearing and vision, powerful legs that help fight off predatory animals.
• Cold-blooded monitor lizards are armed with a very dangerous poison, which is used to hunt small animals, insects. Adapted to the heat, they become aggressive in the cold.
• Fenech is a miniature nocturnal fox with unusually large ears that help to avoid overheating.
• The dung beetle, also known as the Holy Scarab, rolls a ball of ungulate droppings with the help of its hind legs, hides it in underground voids, feeds and lays eggs.

Interesting. The ancient Egyptian god Khepri was depicted with the head of a scarab beetle. According to legend, he owned the secrets of the sun and rolled it across the sky.

How to get to the Sahara

The path of a tourist depends on the territory of which state of the African continent is located any attraction of the Sahara desert.

Moscow-Tunisia

Advice. It would be best to choose a flight to Djerba-Zarzis Airport, as it is located closer to the Sahara.

Moscow - cities of Egypt

Moscow - cities of Morocco

Moscow - Algiers

The cost of the flight is approximately 227 USD - 230 USD.

Moscow - Mauritania

The gateway to the Sahara is the city of Douz, located on the border of the oasis. On its outskirts there is a symbolic key that opens the way for wanderers. Tourists are offered excursions:

• on a camel to the nearest dune (20 USD);
• visiting a remote oasis among the dunes of Ksar Gilan (thermal waters) (168 USD);
• ruins of an ancient Roman settlement, drying up salt Lake Chott el-Jerid with the opportunity to see mirages, the Sahara Explorer program (2 days) - 98 USD;
• Jeep trip - 120 USD.

Interesting. Guided tours of the Star Wars filming locations.

Egypt offers travelers not only to relax on the beach, but also to get acquainted with the sights of the desert (approximate cost):

• Giza Valley, pyramid complex, Sphinx (35 USD);
• numerous oases from which you can go for a walk on a camel, by car, on foot (tourist group) (25 USD - 35 USD);
• the city of Siwa, an ancient fortress, the Temple of Alexander the Great, the Crystal Mountains (5 days, 300 USD);
• the oasis of Bahariya introduces the life of the Bedouins (155 USD - 259 USD);
• Muta city, Ethnographic Museum, Dakhla oasis, Nile Valley, the opportunity to conduct a health course using thermal springs(300 USD - 400 USD).

Travelers in Morocco are attracted by:

• Draa Valley with oases, red dunes, ancient fortresses (300 USD);
• On an off-road vehicle or camel, you can see the virgin ergs of Shigaga (200 USD).

Many famous Hollywood films were filmed in the valley, including "Gladiator", "Pearl of the Nile", "The Mummy".

Almost the entire state is located in the Sahara. Tourists are recommended to see:

• cave drawings Tassil mountains;
• Mzab Valley, 5 cities with unique architecture.

Tours to Algeria cost from 1000 USD.

Mauritania

Despite the tense political situation, desperate tourists are attracted by the Adrar plateau. The not exactly studied formation of Gu-Er-Rishat, which has a diameter of 50 kilometers, became famous after a picture from space. The cost of the tour to Mauritania is 3030 USD - 3380 USD.

Fans of outdoor activities will appreciate the journey through the Sahara.

A truly endless sea of ​​sand, stone and clay, with only rare green spots of oases and one the only river This is the Sahara desert. Its territory is eight million square kilometers. That's bigger than Australia and slightly smaller than Brazil! Five thousand kilometers of heat and sand, from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Red Sea. Origin great desert Sahara holds many secrets and mysteries.

Scientists have conducted computer simulations of the Earth's climate. Research has shown the following:

• the desert exists on the site of the ancient Tethys ocean, which existed in the Mesozoic era eleven million years ago (the remnants of this ocean are the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas).
• during the Paleolithic period (10-12 thousand years ago), the climate in North Africa was much more humid. The Sahara was not a desert, but a steppe-savannah.
• about 5-7 thousand years ago, a drought began, the land of the Sahara was losing moisture more and more, grasses dried up.

Skeleton of a whale in the Sahara Desert

The photo shows the remains of a 15-meter-high beast that died thirty-seven million years ago and sank to the bottom of the ancient Tethys ocean. And in Egypt there is the Valley of the Whales, included in the list " world heritage UNESCO".

There is one important point in the situation with these remains in the desert - the rate of growth of the soil level, on average, according to official studies, is 1-2 mm per year. For 37 million years, several tens of kilometers should have accumulated, and these bones lie on the surface. And not only in the Sahara, there are such remains on the surface of other deserts, in the Gobi (Mongolia), Atacama (Chile). How did they get to the surface - they were probably brought by the same deluge, which happened relatively recently - only 10 thousand ago.

The territory of the Sahara desert is not all covered with sand. But we are presented with the image of this desert: solid sands, dunes with rare rocky massifs.

But there is still a lot of sand - where does it even come from ?! Various versions are being put forward:

• The classical one comes from the fact that the sand is from the Tethys Ocean. But it is not clear why there was so much sand at the bottom of the ocean
• There is a version that sand is the result of technological processing of rocks. V. Kondratov expresses such a version and connects it with aliens, who for some reason needed it
• I found a version, quite plausible, related to the action of the waves of the flood. More details here:

Lesser Known Landscapes of the Sahara Desert

Chad. 16° 52′ 24.00″ N 21° 35′ 31.00″ E

Egyptian desert

All these are remnants of the original surface. They look like islands. The rest of the territory may not have been so solid, the flood carried away the rest of the soil when the waves passed through the continent. The washed away soil is the sands of the Sahara. Soil, rocks, washed by water erosion of the flow grain of sand to grain of sand.

In general, not all of the Sahara is “yellow”. Exists in the eastern part white desert. It is full of bizarre remnants, covered with white sand, which gives it the appearance of the Arctic north, there are also many karst deposits and caves.

Rather, here the waters of the ocean receded gradually, here the organic traces of the ocean were preserved to a greater extent.

The Sahara desert and life in it

The fact that the territory of the Sahara Desert was once inhabited and actively used is also evidenced by the numerous rock paintings found in its different parts. In the years when glaciers raged in the north, the population of the Sahara was engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture, as well as hunting and even fishing.

Somewhere in the middle of the second millennium BC, the outlines of chariots drawn by horses appear on the rocks. The image of a horse on the rocks of the Sahara can be traced back to the 2nd century AD.

Also, one of the common plots of rock art in the Sahara is the image of mysterious creatures, which many researchers mistake for gods, ancient astronauts or aliens.

The Sahara is the most famous desert. No wonder, because it is the largest desert in the world. It is located on the 10 African States. The oldest text in which the Sahara appears as the "great" North African desert dates back to the 1st century AD. A truly endless sea of ​​sand, stone and clay scorched by the sun, enlivened only by rare green spots of oases and a single river - this is what the Sahara is.

"Sahara" or "Sahra" is an Arabic word, it means a monotonous brown desert plain. Say this word aloud: do not you hear in it the wheezing of a man choking with thirst and sizzling heat? We Europeans pronounce the word "Sahara" softer than Africans, but it also conveys to us the formidable charm of the desert.

The word "Sahara" is associated with images of endless, hot sand dunes with very rare emerald green oases. But in reality, here boundless expanses Sahara, you can find almost any kind of desert landscape. In the Sahara, in addition to sand dunes, there are barren rocky plateaus strewn with stones; there are unusual fantastic geological formations; you can also see thickets of thorny bushes.

The Sahara stretches from the dry, thorny plains of northern Sudan and Mali to the coast mediterranean sea where its sands cover the ruins of ancient Roman cities. In the east, it crosses the Nile and meets the waves of the Red Sea, and five thousand kilometers from there in the west it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, the Sahara occupies the entire north of Africa, stretching for 5149 km. from Egypt and Sudan to western coasts Mauritania and Western Sahara. The world's largest desert covers an area of ​​9,269,594 sq. km.

The Sahara is an arid desert, and not a single river intrudes into its borders. In many places, it receives less than 250 mm of precipitation per year, and in some parts of the Sahara it does not rain for years. The main desert area is located inland, and the prevailing winds have time to absorb moisture before it penetrates into the heart of the desert. mountain ranges, separating the desert from the sea, also force the clouds to pour rain, not letting them go further inland. Since clouds are rare here, the desert heat is relentless during the day. After sunset, hot air rises into the upper atmosphere, so that temperatures can drop below freezing at night. Kebili, where the temperature rises to 55 ° C, is one of the hottest places in the desert, not only because of the scorching sun, but also because it lies in the path of the sirocco, the wind that originates in the burning heart of the desert and drives north as hot as from the oven, air. The highest temperature on Earth in the shade + 58 ° was recorded here.

The sand dunes of the Sahara are extremely mobile in places and they move across the desert under the influence of wind at a speed of up to 11 m per year. Huge areas of rolling sand dunes, each occupying an area of ​​up to 100 square kilometers, are known as ergi. famous oasis Fudge lives under the constant threat of impending dunes with suffocating sand. It is interesting that in other regions of the Sahara, dunes practically stand for millennia, and the depressions between them serve as permanent caravan routes.

The arid lands of the Sahara have never been cultivated, and only nomadic tribes roam here with small herds. From an economic point of view, most of the Sahara desert is not productive, and only in a few oases does diversified agriculture develop. IN Lately serious concern is the onset of the desert in the territories adjacent to the Sahara. This phenomenon is observed with the wrong choice of agricultural methods, which, in combination with natural factors such as drought and strong winds, and leads to the onset of the desert. The elimination of native vegetation weakens the soil, which is then dried out by the sun; the wind blows it away in the form of dust, and the desert reigns where shoots once rose.

The Tuareg, forever roaming the most remote and uninhabited regions of the Sahara, are called "blue ghosts". A blue veil that covers the face so that only a strip for the eyes remains, the young man receives at a family holiday when he turns eighteen years old. From that moment on, he becomes a man, and never again in his life, day or night, does he remove the veil from his face and will only move it a little away from his mouth while eating.

Although many areas of the Sahara are covered with sand, but much large area occupy waterless plains strewn big stones and wind-polished pebbles. And in the very heart of the Sahara stretched ridges of sandstone cliffs that stick out vertically on the plateau of Tassilin-Adjer. Here they form an amazing labyrinth of dips, bizarre crooked columns and curved arches. Many resemble modern tower houses, and shallow caves are visible in their foundations. The lower columns often resemble skewed mushrooms. All these fantastic figures were sculpted by the wind, which picked up pebbles and sand, gouging and scratching the surface of the rocks, cutting horizontal furrows in the cliffs, deepening the cracks between the layers of sandstone. Nude, baked by the sun rock, not covered by either vegetation or soil, gradually crumbles into sand, which other winds then carry away in other areas of the desert, to pile them up there.

In some places, under the ledges, on the walls of shallow caves, you can find animals painted in bright yellow and red ocher - gazelles, rhinos, hippos, horse antelopes, giraffes. There are also drawings of domestic animals - herds of motley cows and bulls with graceful horns, and some with a yoke around their necks. The artists also depicted themselves: they stand among their herds, sit near the huts, hunt, pulling their bows, dance in masks.

But who were these people? Perhaps the ancestors of the nomads who still follow the herds of semi-wild, long-horned, spotted cattle that roam among the thorny bushes beyond the southern border of the desert. The time when these drawings were applied to the rocks has not been precisely established, but several styles are clearly distinguished in them, from which it clearly follows that this period was very long. According to most experts, the earliest drawings appeared about five thousand years ago, but none of the depicted animals currently lives on the hot barren sands and pebbles of the Sahara. And only in a narrow gorge with steep walls stands a bunch of old cypresses, the rings on the trunks of which indicate an age of at least two to three thousand years. They were young trees when the last drawings adorned the rocks in the neighborhood. Their thick, gnarled roots have carved their way through the sun-shattered slabs, widening cracks and overturning debris in their stubborn quest to find their way down to the underground moisture. Their dusty needles manage to turn green, resting the eye from the monotonous brown and rusty-yellow tones of the surrounding rocks. Their branches still bear cones with live seeds under the scales. But not a single seed is accepted. The ground is too dry.

And this , remember, we have already discussed it.

Climate change, which turned the Tassili plateau and the entire Sahara into a desert, lasted a very long time. They began about a million years ago, when the great glaciation that fettered the then world began to wane. The glaciers that had crept in from the Arctic, covering the entire North Sea with a hardened pack, and in Europe reached the south of England and the north of France, began to recede. As a result, the climate in this area of ​​Africa became more humid, and Tassili dressed in greenery. But about five thousand years ago, the rains began to fall further south, and the Sahara became more and more dry. The shrubs and grass that covered it died from lack of moisture. Small lakes have evaporated. Animals and people living in it migrated in search of water and pastures further south. The soil was weathered and the former fertile plain, sparkling with wide lakes, eventually transformed into a realm of bare stones and loose sand ...

The sun governs all life in the Sahara. The desert is hot during the day and cold at night. Daily fluctuations in air temperature reach more than thirty degrees. But a person endures the heat of the day more easily than the cold of the night. Oddly enough, but in the Sahara people during the year suffer more from cold than from heat.
Long-lasting storms have the most severe effect on a person. Dust and sand storms are a majestic sight. They are like fires, quickly covering everything around. Puffs of smoke rise high into the sky. With furious force they rush through the plains and mountains, knocking out stone dust from the destroyed rocks in their path.
After hot days with storms, the air in the Sahara is highly electrified. If at this time in the dark you remove one blanket from the other, then the space between them is illuminated by sometimes crackling sparks. Not only from hair, clothes, but even from sharp iron objects, electric sparks can be extracted.

Storms in the Sahara are often of extraordinary strength. The wind speed reaches, according to some researchers, 50 m per second or more. There is a known case when, during a storm, camel saddles were thrown two hundred meters. It happens that the wind moves stones the size of a chicken egg without lifting them from the ground.

Knowing the wind regime is very important for traveling in the Sahara. One day in February in Erg Shegi a storm held a traveler under a rock for nine days. Connoisseurs of the Sahara have calculated that in the desert, on average, out of a hundred days, only six are calm. Unfortunately, little is known about the origin and laws of wind movement. V desert.
Destructive hot winds in the north of the Sahara. They come from the center of the desert and can destroy crops in a few hours. These winds most often blow in early summer and are called "sirocco", in Morocco they are called "shergi", V Algerian Sahara - "Shekhilli", in Libya - "Gebli", V Egypt - "Samum" or "Khamsin". They don't just move sand AND DUST, but also mountains of small pebbles pile up.

Sometimes there are tornadoes for a short time. These are rotating air currents that take the form of pipes. They arise in the daytime due to the heating of scorched earth and become visible due to the rising dust. Fortunately, these sand devils, dancing like ghosts in the mist, deal only occasional damage. Sometimes sand pipes break away from the ground, continuing their life in the high layers of the atmosphere. The pilots met dust devils at an altitude of 1500 m.

The Sahara has not always been a lifeless land.

As further studies confirmed, even in the Paleolithic period, that is, 10-12 thousand years ago (in glacial period) the climate here was much more humid. The Sahara was not a desert, but an African steppe-savannah. The population of the Sahara was engaged not only in cattle breeding and agriculture, but also in hunting and even fishing, as evidenced by rock paintings in different areas desert.

In many parts of the Sahara, ancient cities were buried under a layer of sand; this may be indicative of a comparatively recent desiccation of the climate.

Scientists at Boston University seem to have found another piece of evidence that the Sahara was not always a desert. According to the Boston University Remote Sensing Center, in the northwestern region of Sudan, there used to be huge lake, almost equal in area to Lake Baikal. Now a huge body of water, which because of its size was called Megalake, is hidden under the sands.

Boston University scientists in the northwestern region of Sudan, in the middle of the Sahara, Dr. Eman Ghoneim and Dr. Farouk El-Baz studied photographic and radar images of the Darfur region in order to accurately determine the location of the lake. According to their scientific data, coastline The lake was once located about 573 meters (plus or minus 3 meters) above sea level.

Researchers suggest that several rivers flowed into the lake at once. The maximum area that Megalake once occupied was 30,750 sq. km. In addition, the authors of the study calculated that at the best of times, the volume of water in the lake could reach 2,530 cubic meters. km.

At present, scientists cannot accurately determine the age of the lake, but state another fact that the size of the Megalake indicates constant rains, due to which the volume of the reservoir was regularly replenished. The find once again confirms that before the territory of the Sahara was not always a desert. It lay within the temperate zone and was covered with plants.

Scientists led by El-Baz also suggest that most of the Megalake has seeped into the soil and now exists in the form of groundwater. This information is extremely important for local residents, as it can be used for purely practical purposes. The fact is that it is this region of Sudan that is experiencing a severe shortage fresh water, and the discovery of groundwater would be a gift for them.

Then, about 5-7 thousand years ago, a drought began, the heat increased, the surface of the Sahara lost moisture more and more, the grass dried up. Gradually, herbivores began to leave the Sahara, predators followed them. The animals had to retreat to the distant forests and savannahs of Central Africa, where all these representatives of the so-called Ethiopian fauna still live. Almost all people left the Sahara for animals, and only a few were able to survive where there was still some water left. They became nomads wandering in the desert. They are called Berbers or Tuareg, and the "father of history" Herodotus called this tribe the Garamantes - after the main city of Garama (modern Germa).

By this time, scientists also attribute the appearance of most of the famous frescoes of Tas-sili-Adzher, a plateau located in the center of the great desert. The name itself means "plateau of many rivers" and recalls the distant time when life flourished here. Fat herds and caravans carrying ivory are the central theme of the painting. There are also dancing people in masks and mysterious giant images of the so-called "Martian gods". Much has been written about the latter. The mystery of their origin still excites the minds: either they represent a scene of shamans' rituals, or aliens abducting people.

Sahara is, in fact, not the name of one particular desert, but the collective name of a number of deserts connected by a single space and climatic features. Its eastern part is occupied by the Libyan desert. On the right bank of the Nile, up to the Red Sea, the Arabian Desert extends, to the south of which, entering the territory of Sudan, the Nubian Desert is located. There are other, smaller deserts. Often they are separated mountain ranges with fairly high tops.

There are powerful mountains in the Sahara with peaks up to 2500 thousand m, and extinct crater Emi-Kusi volcano, whose diameter is 12 km, and plains covered with sand dunes, hollows with clay soil, salt lakes and salt marshes, blooming oases. All of them replace and complement each other. There are also giant cavities. One of them is located in Egypt in the northeastern part of the Libyan Desert. This is Qatar, the driest depression on our planet, its bottom is 150 m below sea level.

In general, the Sahara is a vast plateau, a table, the flat character of which is broken only by the depressions of the Nile and Niger valleys and Lake Chad. On this plain, only in three places do truly high, albeit small in area, mountain ranges rise. These are the highlands of Ahaggar (Algeria) and Tibesti (Chad) and the Darfur plateau, rising more than three kilometers above sea level.

The mountainous, gorge-cut, absolutely dry landscapes of Ahaggar are often compared to lunar landscapes.

To the north of them are closed saline depressions, the largest of which turn into shallow salt lakes during the winter rains (for example, Melgir in Algeria and Dzherid in Tunisia).

The surface of the Sahara is quite varied; vast spaces are covered with loose sand dunes, stony surfaces are widespread, worked out in bedrock and covered with crushed stone (hamada) and gravel or pebbles (regi).

In the northern part of the desert, deep wells or springs provide water to oases, thanks to which date palms, olive trees, grapes, wheat and barley are grown.

All the oases of the Sahara are surrounded by palm groves. date palms- the basis of life for local residents. Dates and camel milk are the main food of fellah farmers.

It is assumed that the groundwater that feeds these oases comes from the slopes of the Atlas, located 300–500 km to the north. All life is concentrated mainly in the marginal parts of the Sahara. The largest human settlements are concentrated in the northern regions. Naturally, there are no roads connecting the oases. Only after the discovery and development of oil, several highways were built, but along with them, camel caravans continue to run.

In the east the desert is cut by the Nile valley; since ancient times, this river has provided residents with water for irrigation and created fertile soil, depositing silt during annual floods; the regime of the river changed after the construction of the Aswan Dam.

Few people dare to travel in the Sahara. During a difficult journey, mirages may occur. Moreover, they always come across in approximately the same place. Therefore, it was even possible to draw up maps of mirages, on which 160 thousand marks were made on the location of mirages. These maps even mark what exactly is seen in one place or another: wells, oases, palm groves, mountain ranges, and so on.

It is difficult to find a more beautiful sight than the sunset in the desert. Perhaps only the aurora borealis makes a greater impression on the traveler. The sky in the rays of the setting sun each time strikes with a new combination of shades - it is both blood-red and pink-pearl, imperceptibly merging with pale blue. All this is piled up on the horizon in several floors, it burns and sparkles, growing into some kind of bizarre, fabulous forms, and then gradually fades away. Then, almost instantly, an absolutely black night sets in, the darkness of which even the bright southern stars cannot dispel.

These days, the Sahara is not so difficult to access. From the city of Algiers on a good highway to the desert can be reached in one day. Through the picturesque gorge of El Kantara - "Gateway to the Sahara" - the traveler enters Amazing places. To the left and right of the road, which runs through a rocky and clay plain, small rocks rise, which the wind and sand have given intricate outlines. fairytale castles and towers.

In the Northern Sahara, the influence of the Mediterranean flora is significant, and in the south, species of the Paleotropical Sudanese flora widely penetrate into the desert. About 30 endemic genera of plants are known in the flora of the Sahara, belonging mainly to the families of cruciferous, haze and Compositae. In the most arid, extra-arid regions of the Central Sahara, the flora is especially poor.

So, in the south-west of Libya, only about nine species of native plants grow. And in the south of the Libyan desert, you can travel hundreds of kilometers without finding a single plant. However, there are regions in the Central Sahara that are distinguished by comparative floristic richness. These are the desert highlands of Tibesti and Ahaggar. In the Tibesti highlands, near water sources, willow-leaved ficus and even venus hair fern grow. On the Tassini-Adgenre plateau, northeast of Ahanar, there are relic plants: individual specimens of the Mediterranean cypress.

The Sahara is dominated by ephemera, appearing for a short time after rare rains. Perennial xerophytes are common. The most extensive in terms of area are grass-shrub desert plant formations ( different kinds cereal of Aristides). The tree-shrub layer is represented by free-standing acacias, low-growing xerophytic shrubs - cornulaca, randonia, etc.). In the northern belt of grass and shrub communities, jujube is often found.

In the extreme west of the desert, in the Atlantic Sahara, special plant groups are formed with the dominance of large succulents. Cactus euphorbia, acacia, dereza, sumac grow here. An Afghan tree grows near the ocean coast. At altitudes of more than 1700 m, here (highlands and plateaus of the Central Sahara) begin to dominate: cereals, feather grass, bonfire, ragwort, mallow, etc. The most characteristic plant of the Saharan oases is the date palm.

In the Sahara, there are about 70 species of mammals, about 80 species of nesting birds, about 80 species of ants, more than 300 species of black beetles, and about 120 species of orthopterans. Species endemism in some groups of insects reaches 70%, in mammals it is about 40%, and in birds there are no endemics at all.

Of the mammals, rodents are the most numerous. Representatives of the family of hamsters, mice, jerboas, squirrels live here. Gerbils are diverse in the Sahara (red-tailed gerbil is common). Large ungulates in the Sahara are not numerous, and the reason for this is not only the harsh conditions of the desert, but also the long-term persecution of them by man. The largest antelope in the Sahara, the aryx, is slightly smaller than the addax antelope. Small antelopes, similar to our gazelles, are found in all regions of the Sahara. On the coasts and plateaus of Tibesti, Ahaggar, as well as in the mountains on the right bank of the Nile, a maned ram lives.

Among predators there are: a miniature fox, a striped jackal, an Egyptian mongoose, a dune cat. Birds in the Sahara are not numerous. Larks, hazel grouse, desert sparrow are common. In addition, there are: oystercatcher, desert raven, eagle owl. Lizards are numerous (crest-toed lizards, gray monitor lizard, agamas). Some snakes are excellently adapted to life in the sands - sand efa, horned viper

The one-humped camel, whose appearance symbolizes the Sahara desert, deserves special attention.

But the Sahara still holds many mysteries. One of them is in the desert part of Niger, on the Adrar Ma-det plateau. Here are stone circles laid out of crushed stone with an ideal concentric shape. They are located at a distance of almost a mile from each other, as if on arrows directed exactly to the four cardinal points. Who created them, when and for what, while there is no clear answer to these questions!

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