I must be getting prescient in my old age. On 22 July 2007 I posted about the "euphoria and myopia" surrounding the recent discovery by Dr. Farouk El-Baz and his Boston University team of a "lake" in northern Darfur. My post described how this discovery was not really a lake and also how no one really knows whether there is subsurface water in the area until you ground truth (i.e., drill test wells) the satellite data. There is lot to do before the "1000 Wells for Darfur" initiative comes to fruition.
Well, the current (26 July 2007) issue of Nature has a news article discussing these very same issues (see below).
Download another_elbaz_discovery.pdf
The article essentially says that El-Baz oversold the discovery and made it sound like there was a real live lake there, as large as Lake Erie. It was unfortunate that he used the word "lake", because people assumed that there really was a lake there or beneath the ground. An official from the Sudan Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources contends the BU team misrepresented what they found. El-Baz denies this.
The article mentions that German scientists discovered the lake basin in 1985 and mapped it in the 1990s, something El-Baz admits. Other geologists claim that the Nubian Sandstone, a major water-bearing unit in northern Africa and a productive aquifer where it is thick enough (3,500 meters or 11,500 feet in some areas), would probably be only a few hundred meters thick in northern Darfur and less likely to be a good aquifer.
Furthermore, the real need for water is in western and southern Darfur, not in northern Darfur.
As I said earlier, ground truthing is mandatory before we start touting the Darfur 'lake" as a large source of water and a solution to the genocide in Darfur, whose roots are far deeper than any well that can be drilled.
Maybe we should resurrect Alan Greenspan's "irrational exuberance" term.
"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice." -- Will Durant.
Another issue is the age of the underground water (fossil water), and the long term sustainability, i think
Posted by: Sandrobrunelli | Tuesday, 03 July 2012 at 01:02 AM
Every time I used the term lake it was prefaced by ancient, dry, or former. The German geologist was able to identify playa deposits in the floor. Recent satellite data allowed us to map its boundary and the its terraces. By comparison with another ancient "lake" in SW Egypt it, is believed to host groundwater. That is the story.
Posted by: Farouk El-Baz | Friday, 27 July 2007 at 05:39 AM
Great Call! I think I was even swayed a bit too much by the media reports last week.
Posted by: Robert | Thursday, 26 July 2007 at 07:13 PM