https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JcVMkyJoZY
When The Sahara Desert Was Green - Science Documentary 2017
Wonderbook
1.7K
63,730 views
Published on Apr 30, 2017
Imagine using the Sahara desert to study Climate Change. The authors of this documentary think they found evidence of the Sahara Desert being a swamp and having inland fresh water lakes as little as 8,000 years ago. They surmised this being cause initially by the tectonic plate of Africa moving north where there was a large sea between Africa and Europe and northern Asia. As the plate moves north it pushed up land forming what we know as the Sahara. Then every 20k years there is a wobble in the earth's orbit causing monsoons to shift creating lakes and swamps in the Sahara. Much of the information comes from fossil remains of salt water creatures like whales and also roots of mango trees and erosion patterns on rocks and fresh water sea shells. They attempted to date some of this by using sea floor core samples and looking for changes in the sediment patterns. That is how they dated the last greening event in the Sahara. Very Interesting. Then almost overnight the rains quit falling and Sahara dried up. However, deep under the Sahara there are still pools of fresh water from prehistoric times.
Anyway watch the video if you want.
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