The last days of field work in Erg Chebbi continued at the star dune to wrap up final tasks: filling gaps in the data, adding some dune arms to the ground penetrating radar data, … All data acquisition at the star dune was concluded successfully, although the group was off to a late start. The car that tranports the equipment near the dune field got a few meters too close into the sand, and had to be dug and pushed out in a joint effort.
On the positive side, this was a good training for the final day of field work at Erg Ziz, a newly explored dune field North-West of Hassilabied. In addition to ERT and GPR profiles, a 1.8 m whole was dug to expose a ground profile. The profile was discusses on site and samples taken from the eleven identified layers for lab analysis back in Heidelberg. The stratification showed alternating layers of aeolian deposits, playa, and included visible influences of water-driven processes.
For the remainder, the group will sort out samples and clean the equipment, so that everything is in order for the journey back. On Thursday, it’s time to say goodbye to the beautiful Erg Chebbi region once again. We are very happy to take so much cool data with us, which will help to find out more about the history of the desert!
This was it from this year’s field course in Erg Chebbi, Morocco. Catch up on all blog posts here and check out our tweets under #HeidelErg.