Jabal Arkanu
Encyclopedia
Jabal Arkanu is a mountain (height 1435 m., about 500 m. above the surrounding Gilf Kebir
plateau) and a valley-oasis
placed in the Libyan Desert
in the Kufra District of Libya
, about 300 km southeast of El Tag
. Arkanu's existence was known since 1892 through Arab sources, but the mountain has been explored for the first time in 1923 by Ahmed Hassanein
. The mountain consists of intrusive
granite
. The valley is 15 km long and oriented in east-west. The vegetation consists on bushes, grass and some tree. Arkanu is used as a pasture. Each year the Bedouin
s bring their herds in the valley, block the entrance (placed at an height of 598 m.) with rocks, and come back three months later to pick up the cattle.
In the desert about 70 km west of Arkanu lie the two Arkanu impact craters
.
Gilf Kebir
Gilf Kebir is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier"...
plateau) and a valley-oasis
Oasis
In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
placed in the Libyan Desert
Libyan Desert
The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 km2, it extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle...
in the Kufra District of Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, about 300 km southeast of El Tag
El Tag
El Tag is a village and holy site in the Kufra Oasis, within the Libyan Desert subregion of the Sahara. It is in the Kufra District in the southern Cyrenaica region of southeastern Libya. The Arabic el tag translates as "crown" in English, and derives from the position above the Kufra basin...
. Arkanu's existence was known since 1892 through Arab sources, but the mountain has been explored for the first time in 1923 by Ahmed Hassanein
Ahmed Hassanein
Ahmed Hassanein Pasha, KCVO, MBE or Aḥmad Moḥammad Makhlūf Ḥasanēn al-Būlākī was an Oxford-educated Egyptian courtier, diplomat, Olympic athlete in fencing, photographer, writer, politician, explorer and tutor to King Farouk.Ahmed Hassanein was one of the most influential figures in Egyptian...
. The mountain consists of intrusive
Intrusion
An intrusion is liquid rock that forms under Earth's surface. Magma from under the surface is slowly pushed up from deep within the earth into any cracks or spaces it can find, sometimes pushing existing country rock out of the way, a process that can take millions of years. As the rock slowly...
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...
. The valley is 15 km long and oriented in east-west. The vegetation consists on bushes, grass and some tree. Arkanu is used as a pasture. Each year the Bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
s bring their herds in the valley, block the entrance (placed at an height of 598 m.) with rocks, and come back three months later to pick up the cattle.
In the desert about 70 km west of Arkanu lie the two Arkanu impact craters
Arkenu craters
The Arkenu craters are a pair of eroded impact craters in Libya. They are 10 km and 6.8 km in diameter, and lie about 70 km west of Jabal Arkanu. The craters are believed to have formed simultaneously as a double impact event less than 140 million years ago . Both are exposed at the surface.-...
.