The Eye of the Desert – also known as the Eye of Africa or the Rishat Temple – is a giant rock dome, carved with concentric rings, that looks like a giant bullseye when viewed from above. The eye can be seen from space, and has been known to astronauts and scientists since the first manned missions in the 1950s, according to European Space Agency (ISA).
Estimates of the Ain al-Sahara’s dimensions range from 25 to 31 miles (40 to 50 km) in diameter. The eye forms an almost perfect circle in the Mauritanian desert, which initially led scientists to believe it was the structure of a meteorite impact. However, suffix research I found that the dome was formed by tectonic uplift during the Stone Age Cretaceous period (between 145 and 66 million years ago) and became exposed due to erosion.
The Eye of the Desert stands out like an oversized ammonite amid a massive sea of sand known as the Erg Oudane, which extends about 350 miles (560 km) east of Mali. Erg is a desert area extending at least 48 square miles (125 square kilometers) and is characterized by… Windswept sand with little to no vegetation. The Eye rises about 660 feet (200 m) above the surrounding sand, which rises on its southern edge and sometimes obscures parts of the structure in photographs. According to the European Space Agency.
Related: The mystery of massive ‘star dunes’ in the Sahara Desert has finally been solved – and it’s not what scientists expected
The center of the Ain Al Sahara is a rounded plateau of limestone and breccia — sedimentary rocks with large, fractured fragments held together by a fine-grained matrix — according to 2021 estimates. Stady. The rest of Al Ain descends from this plateau in a circular pattern of ridges and canyons carved by wind and water over the ages. The ridges are composed mostly of resistant quartzite, while the gullies are composed of less resistant sedimentary rocks that erode more quickly.
The reason why the eye is so round is still not clear, according to Lunar and Planetary Institute. Erosion has exposed four types of igneous rocks – gabbro, rhyolite, and carbonatite. Kimberlite – It is smaller than the center of the eye, which indicates that jets of molten rock rose and solidified on the surface. Several blemishes also appear on the outer rings of the eye, indicating this Layers of rocks shifted apart In treatment.
The Eye of the Desert is a geological marvel, but it also holds archaeological significance, he says geographyIt is a journal published by the Royal Geographical Society in the United Kingdom. Excavations have uncovered two million-year-old Acheulean and pre-Acheulean tools associated with two types of ancient human ancestors: Homo erectus And Homo heidelbergensis.
Supporters of the debunked myth Atlantis – The ‘lost’ island subcontinent considered by some to be an advanced utopian society – They claim that Ain Al Sahara is the guide to the city Plato described it in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias.
But “modern archeology and geology together provide an unambiguous verdict,” Ken Feder, professor emeritus of archeology at Central Connecticut State University, previously told Live Science. “There was no great civilization called Atlantis.”
There is no need to turn to mythology for answers when geology provides enough of it.
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