The Adrar des Ifoghas is a sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 massif

Massif

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole...

 in Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

's Kidal Region

Kidal Region

Kidal is the eighth administrative region of Mali, covering 151,430 km². Its capital is the city of Kidal.-Geography:The region is bordered on the west by Tomboctou Region, to the south by Gao Region, to the east by Niger and to the north by Algeria....

, having an area of about 250,000 km².

The area is characterized by wide, shallow valleys, and is strewn with piles of eroded granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 blocks. The massif's valleys open to the Tamesna plain on the east, to the Telemsi fosse on the west, to the western basin of the Azaouak valley on the south, and to the Tanezrouft

Tanezrouft

The Tanezrouft is one of the most desolate parts of the Sahara desert. It is situated along the borders among Algeria, Niger and Mali, west of the Hoggar mountains.-Geographic features:...

 on the north. Cities of the area include Kidal, Aguel'hoc

Aguel'hoc

Aguelhok or Adjelhoc is a Rural Commune and village in Kidal Region of eastern Mali in the Tessalit Cercle. In the census of 2009 the commune had a population of 8,080.- Geography :...

, Boughessa, Essouk

Essouk

Essouk is a commune and small village in the Kidal Region of Mali. The village lies 45 km northeast of Kidal in the Adrar des Ifoghas massif. The ruins of the medieval town of Tadmekka lie 2 km northeast of the present village...

, and Tessalit

Tessalit

Tessalit is a city in Mali's Kidal Region. The town is both a Commune and the capital of Tessalit Cercle . As of 1998 the commune had a total population of 2,533....

.

The Adrar des Ifoghas is known locally as "Adagh"; "Adrar" is the Berber word for mountain, while "Ifogha" is the name of an aristocratic Tuareg clan, "Kel Ifoghas," who have dominated the region for generations. Like most Tuareg, the Kel Ifoghas are nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic, raising camel

Camel

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...

s, goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, and sheep for sustenance and for sale.

The area is rich in archaeological remains, particularly rock drawing

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

s which depict men hunting, farming, and cattle-rearing ; the skeleton of Asselar man

Asselar man

Asselar Man is a neolithic skeleton discovered by Theodore Monod and M.V. Besnard in 1927, in the Adrar des Ifoghas, near Essouk in what is now Mali's Kidal Region...

 was also found in the area by Théodore Monod

Théodore Monod

Théodore André Monod was a French naturalist, explorer, and humanist scholar.-Exploration:...

. In recent years, the Adrar des Ifoghas has also become popular for treks

Hiking

Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...

.