Sand sheet dynamics and Quaternary landscape evolution of the Selima Sand Sheet, southern Egypt

The Selima Sand Sheet occupies more than 120,000km2 of the hyperarid, uninhabited Darb el-Arba'in Desert centered at the border of Egypt and Sudan at latitude 22" N, and is characterized by a featureless surface of lag granules and fine sand broken only by widely separated dune fields and giant ripples of varying height and wavelength. Monitoring of the largest of these chevron-shaped ripples using repeat orbital images and field surveys indicates migration rates of 500-1000 m/yr, accompanied by 0-2.0 cm erosion or deposition of the youngest sand s k e t stratigraphic units. Beneath this active surface, several developmental stages of sand sheet sediments have undulatory upper contacts and varying degrees of pedogenic alteration. The younger stages retain their horizontal lamination and have cracking patterns indicative of past wetter conditions, while older stages have lost their laminar structure through pedogenesis. Historical remains in the desert as well as 14C and Uranium-series dating indicate that the younger strata of the sand sheet have a very low accumulation rate, despite the active movement of the surface. The lower strata were extensively modified during mid and late Pleistocene pluvials, resulting in an initial undulatory surface that set the stage for later accumulation of sand sheet. Below these Quaternary sediments lies irregular topography dissected by channels of mid-Tertiary drainage. The Selima Sand Sheet is neither the result of net aggradation nor degradation, but results from inheritance of an initial fluvial landscape increasingly modified during climatic cycles. Wet periods led to local drainage and deposition, while the increasingly severe arid periods of the late Pleistocene and Holocene resulted in deposition of the blanketing bimodal sediments of the sand sheet.