Algerian oases: Earth with its living skin pulled away

Joanna Carver, reporter

(Image: George Steinmetz)

THESE Algerian oases start looking like footprints on a beach as they stretch out toward the horizon, but the water is underground, not up ahead.

"It's like the Earth with its living skin pulled away," says photographer George Steinmetz.

Steinmetz found the Adjder oasis, about 100kilometres north-west of the small town of Timimoun, on Google Earth. As he does with most of his photos, he took this while paragliding. "We had a hard time finding the place," he says. "We couldn't get a permit to fly in Algeria, so we got there really early. I was flying at sunrise and there were no cops there to give us a hard time." Five minutes after he snapped the photo, his paraglider's motor died and he was forced to make an emergency landing.

Buried in the sand are water pumps, powered by electricity brought in by the pylons seen to the left of the photo. The water is used to nourish the palms, under which vegetables are grown. The water table was once an easily accessible 5metres beneath the surface; now it's about 20metres down, having been depleted by rising demand for water from an increasing population. The sharp edges along the rim of the oases are sand fences built to keep the mobile dunes from burying the gardens.

Deserts have always fascinated Steinmetz. He first visited Algeria when he was 21, after dropping out of Stanford University in California, where he was studying geophysics (he later returned and finished his degree). "I was getting a little bored and frisky," he says. He has also travelled to deserts in Niger, Kenya, Yemen and Antarctica. These are, he says, "the last great wildernesses".

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/263565fa/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C120Calgerian0Eoases0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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