Workshop on Sand Dune Accumulations and Ground-Water Basins in the Eastern Sahara, U.S.-Egypt Workshop

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Description: This award is to provide partial support for a `Workshop on Sand Dune Accumulations and Groundwater Basins in the Eastern Sahara.` It will be organized by Dr. El-Baz from the U.S. in cooperation with Dr. Ibrahim Himida, Deputy Director, Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt. Participants will include 17 senior scientists, 3 post-doctoral fellows, and one graduate student. Of the total, seven will be from the U.S. and five from developing countries in the region of the eastern Sahara. The eastern Sahara is the driest place on earth. Its sandsheets and dune fields, which are sculptured by aeolian activity, are largely enclosed in topographic depressions. Cycles of pluvial periods that date back to 320,000 years ago appear to correspond to interglacial stages, which indicate major global climate changes and the resulting alternation of wet and dry episodes. It is also thought that the rain and surface water seeped through the underlying rocks to be stored in porous layers and fracture zones. Such water would have first accumulated in inland depression forming lakes. The sediment that were carried by rivers and streams would have served as the source of the sand that accumulated into dunes. The question to be answered by the workshop is: can sand dunes fields be considered indicators of the presence of groundwater below the surface? The workshop will include collection of pertinent data as well as Landsat images, the preparation of country reports on research topics for Egypt and for the other countries included in that region. Scope: This award supports seven U.S. scientists, including two junior scientists and a graduate student, to work with scientists from Egypt, and other countries in the eastern Sahara, and with a number of European scientists in a workshop and a field study on an important study to determine the possible relationship between the observed sand dunes and the presence of ground water. This project is likely to result in identification of possible joint research by U.S. scientists and scientists of the region, in addition to obtaining answers to the interesting scientific questions related to the formation of sand dunes. This project is being supported by INT and EAR.