Special NASA satellite images have brought out sophisticated elevation in an area of the Sahara Desert, revealing the silhouette of a mysterious water world wider than the Caspian Sea.
A team of scientists from Royal Hollowway, Brikbeck and King’s College (3 member universities of the University of London, UK) has synthesized satellite images, mapped these “ghost” water banks and published incredible details. about a vast water world of nearly 390,000 km 2 , crossing the borders of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, larger than the Caspian Sea of Central Africa.
Mega Chad’s “ghost” lake is larger than the Caspian Sea, graphically based on satellite images – (photo: ESO/NASA).
Even though it was bigger than the sea, it was just a lake, surrounded on all sides by the desert. No one can see the lake with the naked eye, because it is just a “ghost”, an ancient lake that has long since dried up. Now, the remnant of this great water world is the famous Lake Chad of the Sahara, much smaller than the original lake.
Location of Lake Chad and the “ghost” of Lake Mega Chad in Africa – (photo: DAILY MAIL).
According to the results of analysis of lake sediments by the authors, the primordial lake they named “Mega-Chad” is at least 7,000 years old, formed during the wet period of ancient North Africa, high rainfall in the Sahara region. However, that period of abundant water ended about 5,000 years ago.
The ancient lake Mega Chad also covers the famous area called Bodélé , a huge storehouse of atmospheric dust. Although it comes from the dead land, Bodélé dust is a valuable source of nutrients for plants. The Bodélé area has only been dry for 1,000 years now, and during those 1,000 years, dust from here has crossed the Atlantic Ocean and fed the Amazon rainforest on the other side, helping to keep the Amazon soil fertile.
The study has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.