Qattara depression facts
The Qattara Depression is located in the dry Libyan Desert, the Eastern desert in northwestern Egypt. It covers about 7,000 square miles (18,100 square km) and contains salt lakes and marshes, and it descends to 435 feet (133 meters) below sea level.
The idea of the project is very briefly based on the construction of a canal from the Mediterranean coast to flow into the Qattara Depression area, to generate electricity and desalinate seawater, to irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres, and to establish agricultural, industrial, mining and tourism cities and communities around the project in the direction of the West and East, all within the framework of the project Huge development of the area extending from South El Alamein to South Sallum in urban areas and exploiting it in reclamation, agriculture, tourism, and mining to accommodate 34 million people over the next 40 years.
Qattara depression project
The depression arose due to the influence of the earth by the factors of time and man on the environment. it has been dug sedimentary rocks of Tertiary age. Its downhill slopes come down to pediments graded southward to an axial valley, That valley is now covered by saline crusts, sabkha deposits, and salt.
After the receding of the Mediterranean water, the western desert was formed. A major flow from the Gilf Kebir Highlands flowed northward to near the site of Siwa Oasis, its silt now covered by deposits of the Great Sand Sea. If it reached the Mediterranean Basin perhaps this happened through the sahabi channel system of Libya.
Apparently became inactive after its waters were diverted into the underground. When the Mediterranean water is refilled, the groundwater and the change in climate systems are diminished, when influencing factors of the deserts have completed the shaping of the Depression to give it its present configuration and character.