Ancient lakes and rivers unearthed in Arabia's vast desert dating to around 9,000 years ago

Amazing stuff! Climate change has been going on for millennia not only since the Industrial Revolution as so many demagogues want us to believe!

That is what I call extreme weather events! 😊

"The desert that we see today in Arabia was once a region that repeatedly underwent ‘green’ periods in the past, as a result of periods of high rainfall, resulting in the formation of lakes and rivers around 9,000 years ago. 

This is the key finding from an international, interdisciplinary team that documented an ancient water-sculpted landscape in the Empty Quarter, one of the largest and driest deserts in the world today.   ..."

From the abstract:

"Abundant geomorphological, biological, and isotopic records show that Arabia repeatedly underwent significant climate-driven environmental changes during late Quaternary humid periods. Precisely mapping how the enhancement and expansion of the African Monsoon during these humid periods have affected landscape evolution and human occupation dynamics in Arabia remains a scientific challenge.

Here we reconstruct an ancient water-sculpted landscape consisting of lake and river deposits, coupled with a large outlet valley in the Rub’ al Khali Desert of Saudi Arabia.

During the peak of the Holocene Humid Period or before, intense rainfall reactivated alluvial floodplains and filled a ~1100 km² topographic depression, which eventually breached, carving a deep ~150 km-long valley.

Coupling geologic reconstructions with transient Earth system model simulations shows that this hydrological activity was linked to higher seasonal precipitation punctuated by repeated heavy events. 

Analysis of lacustrine and fluvial sedimentary deposits implies sediment routing across distances of up to 1000 km from the Asir Mountains. Our results indicate that such intense flooding challenges the conventional view of simple, weak, and linear landscape stabilization following increased rainfall in Arabia.

Our findings highlight the crucial role of an enhanced African Monsoon in driving rapid landscape transformations in the Arabian Desert."

Ancient lakes and rivers unearthed in Arabia's vast desert

Unearthing the lush, vibrant past of the world’s largest desert (original news release)

Monsoonal imprint on late Quaternary landscapes of the Rub’ al Khali Desert (open access)

Fig. 1: Distribution of palaeohydrological and geomorphic records, archaeological sites, modeled streams, major monsoon systems, and the study site in Arabia.

Fig. 6: Inferred palaeolake levels based on geomorphic observations.