Ptolemy Lake

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The Ptolemy Lake was investigations of geomorphologists Hans-Joachim Pachur According to a prehistoric lake , located in the early and middle Holocene in western Nubia was.

It was fed by rivers from the Ennedi massif , the Erdi-Ma and the peripheral mountains of the Kufra basin, as well as by artesian springs . At times there was an outflow to the Nile . An area of ​​around 25,000 km² is assumed as the maximum extent.

As a result of the cooling of the climate by 4000 BC BC, the so-called Piora fluctuations , the Eastern Sahara changed into a hyperarid area. Due to a lack of precipitation, the tributaries dried up and the lake dried up.

See also

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Pachur: Lake Ptolemy in western Nubia as a paleoclimate indicator. In: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen , Volume 4, 1997. pp. 227–250.
  • Hans-Joachim Pachur, Norbert Altmann: The Eastern Sahara in the late Quarter: ecosystem change in the largest hyperarid space on earth. Springer, 2006. ISBN 3-540-20445-8 .

Coordinates: 19 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  N , 26 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  E