Ancient network of rivers and lakes found in Arabian Desert

PhysOrg ^ | May 1, 2012 | Oxford University

[SunkenCiv]

Satellite images have revealed that a network of ancient rivers once coursed their way through the sand of the Arabian Desert, leading scientists to believe that the region experienced wetter periods in the past...

Over the course of five years the researchers will study the landscape features and excavate sites of likely archaeological interest, using the network of water courses as a map. They will use the latest dating techniques to pinpoint the ages of fossils of animals, plants and different stone tool technologies and compare the similarities and differences displayed in the region's rock art.

The team's main focus will be the Arabian Desert, but the work will also cover the wider Peninsula. One key question they will attempt to answer is when the first early modern humans are likely to have first arrived in the Arabian Peninsula from Africa and perhaps surrounding regions. They will also look for evidence that suggests how early modern humans were able to survive, or not, in arid and extreme conditions.

Project leader Professor Michael Petraglia, Co-Director of the Centre for Asian Archaeology at Oxford University's School of Archaeology, said: 'From NASA images taken of the Arabian Desert we can see physical landscape features that are visible from space that denote a whole network of former river valleys and lake basins. These lines and dips in the sand provide us with a map of the region upon which we will focus our research activity. The presence of water is an accurate indicator of where early humans and animals migrated to or settled.

[stevio]

I fear that America will share the same fate when God lifts His hand from us.

[husky ed]

Those look like Bigfoot tracks. ;8^)

Ed

[PIF]

Then in a catastrophe (called “bursting of the dam”) apparently of global dimensions, this country became a desert.

—

The theory goes that sometime after 16,000 BC when the Ice Cap began to melt, a huge slab slid off the Canadian Ice blocking the Gulf current and creating the Younger Dryas, thus changing the weather in the Atlantic.

When the ice blocking the current melted, the Atlantic weather changed again and rain no longer fell over the Sahara region as today.

[PIF]

The land was lower because the glaciers had trillions on trillions of cubic miles of water locked up. When the ice melted sea leval rose 400-700 hundred of feet worldwide. Weight had little to do with it.

[cloudmountain]

I didn't think there was any question but that the desert once was awash. There are many fossil beds throughout the desert which point to major water-course events.
Maybe now they are getting to be able to map them more accurately.

The American awl bidness took FABULOUS photos some 80+ years ago in their quest for petroleum fields. They did the best available then.

Thirty years ago, the BEST was also done, all in the name of MORE awl.

Now, the imaging is better yet, still for the purpose of finding more "black gold."

[cloudmountain]

:o)

[Straight Vermonter]

Look up post-glacial rebound.

[Fledermaus]

Must have been camel caused global warming.

[Pelham]

Isn’t Petra in Jordan?

[Kenny Bunk]

Jordan, within whoseboundaries lies Petra, is a country invented in 1916. The HUGE Arabian Peninsula, which used to be called in the olden days a “Semi-Continent” contains Israel, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Quatar, Oman, etc.

[Pelham]

I’ll defer to your eminent geographical scholarship.

‘Never argue with a Maineiac’ I always sez, especially one who fraternizes with ‘gators and G. Gordon hisself.

I was just wondering if there was another Petra that I wasn’t aware of.