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What I would like to convince you with

Modeling Incision History of the Gorge of the Nile with Remote Sensing and GIS Analysis Mohamed G. Abdelsalam Geological Sciences and Engineering Missouri S&T GEO/GE 248 – Fundamentals of GIS November 3, 2009. What I would like to convince you with.

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What I would like to convince you with

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  1. Modeling Incision History of the Gorge of the Nile with Remote Sensing and GIS AnalysisMohamed G. AbdelsalamGeological Sciences and EngineeringMissouri S&TGEO/GE 248 – Fundamentals of GISNovember 3, 2009

  2. What I would like to convince you with • There has to be a drastic Late Miocene – Pliocene increase in sediments flux carried by the Blue Nile from the Ethiopian Plateau in order to build the fertile floodplains and delta of the Egyptian Nile in ~800,000 years. This was the result of accelerated incision driven by ~6 and ~3 Ma pulsed uplift of the Ethiopian Plateau. Increased sediments flux can not be associated with enhanced atmospheric shift (higher precipitation) because Africa was undergoing aridification at that time

  3. Approach • The Nile System • The Ethiopian Nile and sediments removal • The Egyptian Nile, its floodplains and delta • Nile System sediments budget dilemma (Why steady incision doesn’t make sense) • Accelerated, uplift-driven incision leading to increased sediments removal from the Ethiopian Plateau • Semi-quantitative uplift estimates from the geological record (Making the case for post-Afar Mantle Plume uplift) • Quantitative GIS modeling (Making the case for accelerated incision) • Paleo-climatological and paleo-anthropological circumstantial “evidence” (Making the case against increased precipitation)

  4. Acknowledgements • NSF, Evolution of the Gorge of the Nile in Ethiopia from ASTER and SRTM Remote Sensing Data and Field Studies, September 2003 – October 2005 • NSF, Reconstructing the Geological History of the Egyptian Nile, April 2008 – March 2011 (with Steve Gao, Kelly Liu and Estella Atekwana) • NSF, Modeling Drainage Incision on the Ethiopian Plateau, September 2009 - August 2012 (with Hong Sheng) • Geological Survey of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia • Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia • Sohag University, Sohag, Egypt • Alexandria University, Damanhur, Egypt • Nahid Gani, Solomon Gera, Ahmed Youssef, Elamin Ismail

  5. The Nile System

  6. ~85 bcm of water/y ~25 bcm of water/y ~60 bcm of water/y The Nile System Africa USA • ~6500 km long • The Nile basin countries include Burundi, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda

  7. The Nile System Said (1993) divided the Nile System into five regions: (1) Egyptian Nile (2) Cataract Nile (3) Central Sudan Nile (4) Sudd Nile (5) Lake Plateau Nile Gani and Abdelsalam (2006 - JAES) suggested adding a sixth region: (6) Ethiopian Nile

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