Geomorphological Investigations of Desert Pavements and Wadi Terraces in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

Abstract

The mountainous Eastern Desert of Egypt is an extremely eroded environment where the conditions to encounter Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental geoarchives are very rare. Dominated by outcrops of Precambrian basement, the drainage system is characterized by relatively short wadis with small catchment areas (figure 1). The limestone hogback of Djebel Duwi is one of the exceptional regions within the Eastern Desert which provides a significant amount of quaternary deposits, mainly wadi terraces at the eastern and western side of Djebel Duwi, caused by the existing tectonic basin (figure 2). It also serves the location of the archaeological site of Sodmein Cave, where latest dating results of heated chert evidence human presence at the site during MIS 5 (Schmidt et al. 2015). Nowadays, a hyperarid climate is dominant in the area, but the cave deposits have indicate for the Pleistocene regional wetter conditions. In case of a lack of natural sediment sinks beside the cave, no sedimentological investigations are possible to achieve the landscape evolution and therefore, the morphometric analysis of the wadi system is one key feature for the reconstruction of the former terrain and geomorphic processes.

Resources

• Henselowsky et al. 2015. Geomorphological Investigations of Desert Pavements and Wadi Terraces in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.pdf

Bibliography

Henselowsky, F., Bolten, A., Kindermann, K., van Peer, P., Saadallah, A., Bubenzer, O. (2015): Geomorphological Investigations of Desert Pavements and Wadi Terraces in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. CRC806-Database, DOI: 10.5880/SFB806.24