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These pictures show the ancient and mysterious ruins of Djado, an abandoned African city which exists in current day Niger. The ruined city is found on the Djado Plateau in the Sahara Desert, a portion of the world’s greatest desert in Northeastern Niger, which is famous for truly ancient cave art of massive animals long gone from the region (and often from Earth). It seems the region was once a forest, and then a lush grassland, but now it is a desert (which is worth thinking about). Djado does not seem to be the actual original name of this abandoned fortress town, but is rather a description: “the abandoned city of Djado” (like calling Detroit “the abandoned City of the Great Lakes”), however since I don’t have access to the actual name, I will call the ruins “Djado” so that this post isn’t unreadable. The adobe ruins date to 800 to 1000 years ago, when the community was an important trading center for salt and slaves between kingdoms in Niger and Libya.
The city’s most recent inhabitants, the Kanuri people, abandoned it–perhaps because the water supply grew brackish, the desert grew too fierce, or the original economic reason which lead the city to flourish had long since vanished. The Kanuri may or may not have been the original inhabitants–the Djado plateau seems to have been a disputed region between greater kingdoms and empires, but the real history is uncertain. The photos are certainly evocative however, and they provide troubling food for thought as Ferrebeekeeper begins to delve more deeply into the history and meaning of cities. I would also like to think about the future direction that cities can go, since ever more of humankind lives in these habitats we have made for ourselves. Yet we barely seem to have thought about the possibilities of what we could truly create and instead we have utilitarian follies which reflect our obsession with status and our relentless competition among ourselves.
Namib Naukluft National Park, Namibia. (Photo by Michael Poliza)
Once again I have been thinking about the Namib Desert–the world’s oldest desert–which calls to me for reasons I cannot fully explain. I wrote about some of the Namib’s strange animals and plants…but one thing I did not mention was its ergs. This is because I did not know what an erg is, but today I looked it up and the concept is simultaneously horrifying and beautiful. An erg is a sea of wind-blown sand. This geographic feature is not unique to the Namib Desert—or indeed to planet Earth—but they do tend to be found only in vast & mighty deserts. Such a landscape is characterized by vast dunes—mountain-like sand hills composed of immense numbers of individual sand grains.
A sand dune in the Rub al Kali Desert
Geographers have seemingly fixed certain parameters on how large a sandbed must be to count as an erg—but I will let you look these up on your own—I think the word “sea” covers the scope of ergs. We are not talking about a child’s sandbox here.
Issaouane Erg, Algeria (photo from the International Space Station)
The word erg derives from an Arabic word “arq” which means dune landscape. The Rub al Kali Desert “the empty quarter” of Saudi Arabia is a vast erg—the world’s largest. There are a multitude of ergs throughout the Sahara (as seen on the map below) and they can also be found in central Asia, the middle of Australia, and the Atacama Desert (which I also really need to write about). Ergs are less common in North America than in Asia and Africa, but there a few notable examples mostly in the Sonoran Desert, but also including the unimaginatively named “Great Sand Dunes” in Colorado.
The geology of ergs is quite fascinating as the dominant agent of erosion and change is wind rather than water. When wind activity shapes the surface of the Earth (or another planet), geologists describe the varying sorts of erosion, deposition, and weathering as “Aeolian processes” in homage to the ancient Greek god of the winds who crops up in the Odyssey and the Aeneid. Ergs do not just feature great dunes but also strange sand sculpted rocks and dry river beds.
White Sands, New Mexico
As noted, ergs are not a phenomena exclusive to Earth, but can be found on other planetary bodies too (if they have silica and atmospheres). Ergs have been discovered on Mars where vast erg fields ring the polar caps. The Martian winds blow the ergs into bizarre patterns and shapes (usually I would say “otherworldly”, but that seems too pedestrian a word here). Venus also has ergs (discovered by the Magellan probe) and Cassini’s radar spotted huge parallel ergs on Saturn’s great moon Titan. Indeed ergs may be the dominant surface feature of Titan.
Martian Polar Dunes (photographed by the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft)
I have never been to an erg. There are none in Brooklyn (yet). However I would like to see one…although I admit to a certain amount of trepidation. They do not seem like places for life, and indeed they are among the most lifeless places on all of Earth. Ergs are beautiful but also terrible and dangerous. At least they should stay free of suburban sprawl for long enough for me to visit one (and it will probably be a very long time indeed before we cover the ergs of Titan with strip malls).
Erg Chebbi in Morocco (Bjørn Christian Tørrissen)
Fennec Foxes (Vulpes zerda)
The world’s smallest fox lives in the world’s largest desert, the Sahara. The adorable fennec fox (Vulpes zerda) is actually the world’s smallest canid of any sort: they are the tiniest members of the dog family weighing in at only 1.5–3.5 lb. Nocturnal omnivores, fennec foxes use their huge ears to listen for prey–and for predators such as the fearsome eagle owl. Additionally, since the foxes’ ears are filled with blood vessels, they provide a convenient way of cooling off in the oppressive daytime heat. Tiny pads on the foxes’ feet protect their delicate paws from hot sand and sharp rocks while muffling the noise of their movement. They dig substantial burrows and are renowned among people of the Sahara for their cunning and cleverness.
Snuggling a fennec fox kit
The fennec fox is the one of two species of fox which can live with people as a domestic pet (the other pet fox is the domesticated silver fox, which is the end product of 60 years of crazy Soviet experimentation). Hopefully their adorable little countenances will help you get through this extremely l…o…n…g week after the holidays.
A young fennec at a zoo (or possibly being arrested for cuteness)
ferrebeekeeper 