Small Machtesh Negev Aspect
"Negev" in Hebrew means south. Israel's Negev Desert, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob tended their flocks, comprises 66%, over 13000km² of Israel. The Negev covers the greater amount of Israel's official Southern District. Triangular in shape, with the resort town of Eilat at its southern apex and Beer Sheva as its northern base; the western border is touching with the desert of the Sinai peninsula, and the eastern border is the Wadi Arava. Following a visit to Palestine in 1867, Mark Twain described the Negev Desert in his book "The Innocents Abroad" as "a desolation that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action".A makhtesh (Hebrew: מַכְתֵּשׁ, plural: מַכְתְּשִׁים – Makhteshim) is a geological landform regarded to be unique to the Negev desert of Israel and the Sinai Peninsula. Although commonly known as "craters" (a literal reading of the Hebrew, and due to the visual similarity), these formations are more accurately described as erosion cirques (steephead valleys or box canyons). A makhtesh has steep walls of resistant rock surrounding a deep closed valley which is usually drained by a single wadi. The valleys have limited vegetation and soil, containing a variety of different colored rocks and a diverse fauna and flora which has been protected and preserved over millions of years. The best known (and largest) makhtesh is Makhtesh Ramon of Israel's Negev desert. Contents [hide] 1 Formation 2 Makhteshim Negev Sinai 3 Gallery 4 External links 5 References [edit] Formation A hard outer layer of rock covered softer rocks. Erosion relatively quickly removes the softer minerals, and they are washed away from under the harder rock. The harder rocks eventually collapse under their own weight and a crater-like valley structure is formed. In Negev and Sinai makhteshim, the hard rocks are limestone and dolomites, while the inner softer rocks are chalk or sandstone. [1] In most cases, makhteshim only have one drainage system, although the
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Location: Israel
Photo credit: © yoel harel / Alamy / Afripics
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