Blurs

Look at the Sahara today and it seems almost impossible to imagine it as anything other than desert. Endless dunes. Rocky plains. Salt flats. Scattered oases. Very little permanent surface water. But beneath that landscape is another world. Buried beneath sand and sediment are the traces of rivers that haven't flowed for thousands — and sometimes hundreds of thousands — of years. Ancient lake beds. Old drainage networks. Floodplains. Wetlands. And landscapes that once supported animals and humans in environments almost unrecognisable from those we see today. The deserts of the world are not necessarily empty landscapes. They are often preserved landscapes. And modern technology is allowing scientists to see them. The desert wasn't always a desert One of the clearest examples is the Sahara. During the African Humid Period, roughly 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, much of what is now the Sahara experienced substantially wetter conditions. The region contained extensive lakes, rivers an...