[Covenantor]

"....Garamantes who could now access the vast amounts of fossilised water in the bedrock below...."

fossilised water

really?

[texas booster]

Fossilised water - it's not just a calcium supplement anymore.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-fossil-water.html

[JD_UTDallas]

Fossilized water is the general term for water that has not been in meteoric contact for at least 10000 years. This is determined by the O18 isotopic ratio. Water that has been in the atmosphere recently due to cosmic rays creating radioactive isotopes of oxygen in the upper atmosphere has a distinctive signature.

That portion of North Africa would have been green and wet during the last ice age as the climate bands moved South so did the zone of high pressure that creates the Sahara today. There’s vast amounts of ice age water under the Sahara that fell as rain 16000 to 12000 years ago stored in porous rock. More than all the water currently stored in the great Lakes by some hydrologists accounts. I did one of my master’s degrees in hydrogeology fascinating stuff. My research was on salt water injection induced seismisity in the Midland basin.