review How deep is the Sahara Desert? If all the sand is dug up, what is left underneath?

Mondo Science Updated on 2024-02-25

As we all know, the earth is not only rich in biological populations, but also has many unique geographical features, and in the vast landmass, nearly one-third of the area belongs to deserts.

The Sahara Desert covers an area of 9.2 million square kilometres, but the southern part of the Sahara Desert is surprisingly rich in green vegetation, which is a stark contrast.

So how did the Sahara Desert come to be? How deep is the Sahara Desert? What will you find if you dig up the sand?

In fact, in the beginning, the Sahara Desert was a lush grassland with many animals and plants living in this area, and scientists also used advanced scientific instruments to explore the Sahara Desert.

After a search, scientists found traces of human activity in the Sahara Desert, which fully shows that more than 7,000 years ago, the environment in the Sahara region was not as harsh as it is now.

Satellites have also played a huge role in helping mankind explore the history of the Sahara, with data from satellites showing the existence of lake and riverbeds beneath the Sahara Desert.

However, in the later period, the precipitation in the Sahara became less and less, and even some areas did not receive rain for a long time, and rain is the fundamental condition for the survival of the grasslands, and the long-term lack of water led to the death of a large number of vegetation.

The environment of the Sahara steppes began to become unsuitable for humans and animals, so both humans and animals left the Sahara in order to survive.

Over time, the Sahara steppe gradually became bare, until later, the Sahara region gradually became a desert under the influence of the wind.

In the final analysis, the reason for the desert in the Sahara is that the tilt angle of the earth's axis of rotation has changed, and I believe everyone knows that the earth is in rotation all the time.

Although the Earth's axis of rotation is relatively stable, it will slowly change, and this phenomenon is called the precession of the Earth's axis in geography, and the tilt angle of the Earth is gradually shrinking.

As a result of this phenomenon, the area where the sun can shine directly shrinks, and the North African monsoon changes as a result, and the Sahara region gradually evolves from a grassland to a desert.

However, some experts have put forward a hypothesis that the Sahara region may be restored to grassland again in the future, but this time may be 150,000 years later.

Now that we understand why the Sahara Desert is formed, let's tackle how deep the Sahara Desert is and what secrets lie beneath its sand.

People have been interested in the Sahara Desert for a long time, and at first, due to the fact that science and technology are not very developed, if they rashly launch the Sahara Desert, they are likely to face danger to their lives.

Therefore, people can only suppress their curiosity about the Sahara Desert, and it is not until there is a huge breakthrough in modern social science and technology that scientists can use scientific instruments to investigate the Sahara Desert.

After a long period of exploration, scientists have discovered that the terrain of the Sahara Desert is so complex that it is almost impossible to measure accurate numbers.

Because some sand may be only a few tens of meters deep, but some sand can even reach hundreds of meters, and the depth of the sand will change with the weather.

Finally, after many explorations, the experts came to a rough conclusion, that is, the average depth of the sand in the Sahara Desert is at least 150 meters.

After the release of this data, it is not difficult to understand why some people who go on an expedition in the Sahara Desert, once they get stuck in the sand, the probability of climbing out becomes extremely low, and they end up dying in the desert.

It turns out that in the calm desert, there are actually many unknown dangers, and if you are not careful in the desert, you may put yourself in a crisis.

Although there has been significant progress in the world's science and technology, it is not to be underestimated whether it is necessary to know what is at the bottom of the Sahara Desert.

Because if you want to find out the truth of the matter, you have to dig through the sand of the Sahara Desert, but the wind direction of the Sahara Desert changes at any time, and the wind direction cannot be controlled manually.

The change in wind direction will bring new sand to the Sahara Desert, making it more difficult for scientists to explore, and although it is extremely difficult, scientists have not given up, on the contrary, they have come up with many ways to achieve their goals.

After everyone's efforts, people finally unveiled the mystery of the bottom of the Sahara Desert, which is first composed of some weathered rocks, sedimentary rocks, magmatic rocks and metamorphic rocks.

In addition to these most basic rocks, the Sahara Desert is also rich in rare resources such as oil, natural gas, and iron ore, which are precious energy sources that cannot be separated from human production and life in modern society.

After the results were announced, they immediately attracted wide attention from all countries in the world, and some countries took advantage of their geographical location to take the lead in exploiting the resources of the Sahara Desert.

These countries have taken advantage of technology to begin to exploit the oil resources of the Sahara region, and the development and utilization of oil has led to rapid economic growth in these countries and a marked improvement in the living standards of the people.

Up to now, many countries near the Sahara Desert have become the world's famous oil producers, and the oil produced by these countries is not only large in quantity, but also recognized by countries around the world.

In addition to the abundant oil resources, the discovery of groundwater resources is a surprise for countries in desert areas, and many people may think that this news may be grandstanding, how can there be groundwater resources in the desert?

But the reality proved the mystery of nature, and in the 50s of the 20th century, scientists accidentally discovered a large amount of water resources in the southern part of the desert while carrying out exploration.

At first, it was thought that there was a problem with the machine, but it was not until it was confirmed that the desert did indeed contain a large amount of groundwater.

After confirming the authenticity, the scientists continued to dig deeper, and finally they found that all of the groundwater was a drinkable freshwater resource.

If these freshwater resources can be fully utilized, they could provide water supply to a country for at least a thousand years, a discovery that is invaluable to African countries.

In fact, it is not surprising that there are large amounts of groundwater resources in the Sahara Desert, which was previously a dense grassland, and a large amount of vegetation cover can accumulate considerable groundwater resources.

Although precipitation is scarce in the Sahara, it still rains at some point each year, and this rain flows into the ground through the cracks in the desert, which allows the groundwater in the Sahara to accumulate over time.

In addition to oil, natural gas, and groundwater resources, there are also people who have discovered mineral resources such as iron ore and copper ore in the Sahara Desert, which are also very sought-after in the world.

As long as neighboring countries can have mining technology, they can use these mineral resources to achieve the goal of economic growth, and after the economy is developed, these countries can use the funds to vigorously develop their own infrastructure.

From the above information, we can clearly see that although the Sahara Desert looks very desolate, it is rich in precious natural resources.

I believe that with the passage of time, we will be able to develop the Sahara Desert more deeply, and the development of the Sahara Desert has also given us an example.

Although China is rich in natural resources, there are also deserts, and if we can learn from the experience of developing the Sahara Desert, we will be able to fully develop and utilize the deserts in our country.

In this way, we will be able to make better use of these resources while protecting the ecosystem, so that the strength of the country can be further strengthened. **10,000 Fans Incentive Plan

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