The age of the Sahara desert.
In the Sahara region, the age of onset of the desert condition has been uncertain until now. Here we report on the discovery of 7,000,000-year-old eolian dune deposits from the northern Chad Basin. This geological archive is the oldest known evidence for desert occurrence in the Sahara.
Université Bretagne Occidentale, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, Domaines Océaniques, CNRS Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 6538, 1 place Nicolas Copernic, 29280 Plouzané, France. schuster@univ-brest.fr
Mathieu
M
Schuster
Philippe
P
Duringer
Jean-François
JF
Ghienne
Patrick
P
Vignaud
Hassan Taisso
HT
Mackaye
Andossa
A
Likius
Michel
M
Brunet