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The Largest Ancient Man Made Canal System on Earth
earthepochs.blogspot.co.uk ^ | April 3, 2014 | johnmjensen jr

Posted on 01/03/2015 4:10:32 PM PST by Fred Nerks

From my Free Web Book 'AncientCanalBuilders.com'

The largest wide-array man made (or at least non natural) structure in the world is in fact an ancient terra formed systems of agricultural-aquaculture canals in Northwestern Botswana and Northeastern Namibia, north of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa. Obviously quite ancient, the canal systems no longer provide free flowing water throughout its 105,000 mile array, but many sections show obvious intention to provide cross sectional irrigation.

These canals are too evenly spaced over too large an area to be any kind of natural formation. Based on entry and exit points, it is readily apparent this system is a very large, controlled agronomy array and/or aquaculture system. Its age is defined by the overgrown nature of the canals, as well as some areas that are covered over with drift and sand erosion.

The entire complex covers an area about equal in size to the State of Arizona in the USA. The canals are an integrated system of apparent irrigation and agricultural (and probably aquaculture) design. The system is about 350 miles in width and about 300 miles in depth. (For the remnants still visible.) This system represents roughly 67 MILLION acres of sustainable agriculture. Given the sophistication of design, it is entirely plausible to assume an above average yield, i.e. feeding well over 90 persons per acre on an annual basis. The system may or may not have provided a sustainable aquaculture (marine farming) environment. I have no reason to suspect that it did not.

Given the size and scope of this complex, (canals are about 1 mile apart on average) and collectively are roughly 350 X 300 miles in a rough rectangular format. (At least the observable parts) There could be, and probably is, much more to this complex than what is visible to the naked eye. Right now, we can identify ancient cultivation of roughly 105,000 square miles.

One square mile = 27,878,400 square feet, or 640 acres, so the entire complex had a sustained producing land mass of (640 acres x 105,000 square miles) or > 67,200,000 acres. (That is 67 MILLION acres)

One linear mile of canal had (750' width x + >12' depth x 5,280') = 47,520,000 cubic ft of water per linear mile.

Entire canal length (105,000 miles x 47.5 million cubic ft per mile) = 5,000,000,000,000 (That's 5 TRILLION) cubic feet of water in the canals. It would be an incredible waste of time and effort to irrigate >105,000 square miles of sustainable agriculture land, and not use the 5 trillion cubic feet of water circulating in the canals for aquaculture farming. I don't think the builders were that stupid.

Different estimates of the numbers of people this sustainable system would supply varies widely, though it is generally accepted that a system like this, if properly managed would provide a complete annual diet for somewhere between 60 to 120 people per acre. Which means this system was in fact providing food for an average of about 5 Billion people.

This array is in fact the largest non natural artifact on the Planet. It can be clearly viewed unaided from the International Space Station at roughly 230 miles up, which cannot be said for any other non natural feature on Earth.

I would suggest that depth of canal(s) must have been significant to compensate for general slight variations in elevation. There seems to be an average elevation variation of about 60', sometime more, and sometimes less.

Your comments are welcome, or you can contact me here:

johnmjensenjr@gmail.com 321-614-5040

First brought to my attention by Gary Schoening Here is his original Vimeo post: http://vimeo.com/64351951


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: africa; agriculture; ancientcanals; animalhusbandry; botswana; canals; godsgravesglyphs; irrigation; kalahari; kalaharidesert; namibia; remotesensing
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1 posted on 01/03/2015 4:10:33 PM PST by Fred Nerks
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To: Fred Nerks

Why did the “Green Acres” theme just pop up in my head ?


2 posted on 01/03/2015 4:12:50 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: SunkenCiv

I'm speechless. I doubt it was all done for the growing of potatoes for local consumption...

3 posted on 01/03/2015 4:16:53 PM PST by Fred Nerks (Fair Dinkum!)
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To: Fred Nerks

Lots of speculation.


4 posted on 01/03/2015 4:18:37 PM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: Fred Nerks

Wow, very interesting.


5 posted on 01/03/2015 4:22:00 PM PST by Fzob (Jesus + anything = nothing, Jesus + nothing = everything)
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To: Fred Nerks
Which means this system was in fact providing food for an average of about 5 Billion people.

Then remains of processing plants, animal lots, cities, roads and other transportation system will be found.

6 posted on 01/03/2015 4:23:39 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (The Gruber Revelations are proof that God is still smiling on America.)
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To: Fred Nerks

I usually crack jokes about this stuff but this one is really amazing....


7 posted on 01/03/2015 4:23:47 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Fred Nerks

Where did the fresh water come from to fill up this system?


8 posted on 01/03/2015 4:24:54 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Balding_Eagle

Battlestar Galactica did it when they arrived.


9 posted on 01/03/2015 4:27:42 PM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: Fred Nerks

They would have needed one HELL of a water source to fill that thing up.


10 posted on 01/03/2015 4:27:51 PM PST by skeeter
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To: Balding_Eagle

5 billion people???? There are 7 billion people now. Where did they go?


11 posted on 01/03/2015 4:30:20 PM PST by Lx (Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it, "Mr. & Mrs. Tenorman Chili.")
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To: cripplecreek

Because speculation is all that is possible. We relate what we see to agriculture because that’s familiar territory. There are similar ‘canals’ all over Peru and Bolivia.


12 posted on 01/03/2015 4:30:31 PM PST by Fred Nerks (Fair Dinkum!)
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To: Fred Nerks

Food for 5 billion when transportation and food storage would barely be able to get food to the nearest 5 million people alive at the time. Yeah, sure, every enterprise creates 1000 times more production than it can actually use or consume or sell. Mm hmm.


13 posted on 01/03/2015 4:30:37 PM PST by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: Fred Nerks

” Obviously quite ancient”

How ancient?


14 posted on 01/03/2015 4:30:43 PM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (It's a shame nobama truly doesn't care about any of this. Our country, our future, he doesn't care)
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To: Teacher317

I would say this was obviously a Chinese off shored operation exploiting cheap African labor.


15 posted on 01/03/2015 4:32:15 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Fred Nerks

That is so cool. I can see it from Google Maps!


16 posted on 01/03/2015 4:33:06 PM PST by XEHRpa
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To: skeeter

Maybe not as much as one thinks. If they had the capacity to build this, they probably also had the capacity to build a reservoir and collect from rainstorms and such.


17 posted on 01/03/2015 4:34:44 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Fred Nerks

So is this a big giant fail? I see no lush vegetation or produce fields.

Did they shoot it flat with some alien prehistoric laser and then terre firma tilt and make the water run backwards?


18 posted on 01/03/2015 4:35:44 PM PST by Delta 21 (Patiently waiting for the jack booted kick at my door.)
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To: Fred Nerks

Despite the claim that nature doesn’t make straight lines, there are naturally occurring straight lines all over Africa and many other areas of the planet.


19 posted on 01/03/2015 4:36:03 PM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: Jonty30

This system is in one of the driest places on earth. It needs a large river to feed it.


20 posted on 01/03/2015 4:36:06 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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