The Harrat has been occupied by humans since at least the
Late Epipalaeolithic (
c. 12,500–9500 BCE).[4] One of the earliest known sites is
Shubayqa 1 (occupied
c. 12,600–10,000 BCE),[4][5] a
Natufian site where archaeologists have discovered the remains of the oldest known
bread.[6]
Geology
The Harrat comprises
volcanic fields formed by tectonic activity from the
Oligocene through to the
Quaternary.[7] It is the largest of several volcanic fields on the
Arabian Plate,[8] containing more than 800
volcanic cones and around 140
dikes.[7] Activity began during the
Miocene; an earlier eruptive stage at the southeastern end of the volcanic field, occurred during the late
Pleistocene and the
Holocene.[9] It is known to have erupted in historic times.[10][11]
The
Jabal al-Druze,
al-Safa and
Dirat al-Tulul volcanic fields, among others, form the northern and Syrian part of the ḥarra. The Saudi Arabian portion of the Harrat Ash Shamah volcanic field extends across a 210 km (130 mi)-long, roughly 75 km (47 mi)-wide northwest-southeast-trending area on the northeastern flanks of the
Wadi Sirhan and reaches its 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) high point at Jabal al-Amud. It is in the
Tabuk Province of northwest
Saudi Arabia.[12][13] and is one of a series of Quaternary volcanic fields paralleling the
Red Sea coast.
^Ibrahim, K. (1993), The geological framework for the Harrat Ash-Shaam Basaltic Super-Group and its volcanotectonic evolution,
Jordan: Bulletin 24, Geological Mapping Division, Natural Resources Authority
^S.A. Ghazanfar, Vegetation of the Arabian Peninsula (Springer Science & Business Media, 1998) p 272.
^
abRichter, Tobias (2017). "Natufian and early Neolithic in the Black Desert". In Enzel, Yehouda;
Bar-Yosef, Ofer (eds.). Quaternary of the Levant: Environments, Climate Change, and Humans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 715–722.
ISBN978-1-107-09046-0.
^
abAl Kwatli, Mohamad Amer; Gillot, Pierre Yves; Lefèvre, Jean Claude; Hildenbrand, Anthony (2015-09-01). "Morpho-structural analysis of Harrat Al Sham volcanic field Arabian plate (Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia): methodology and application". Arabian Journal of Geosciences. 8 (9): 6867–6880.
doi:
10.1007/s12517-014-1731-1.
ISSN1866-7538.
S2CID129569824.
^Peter Vincent, Saudi Arabia: An Environmental Overview (CRC Press, 2008) p22.
^U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989) pA152
^Geological Survey Professional Paper, Volume 560, Part 1 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989)
Further reading
Ilani, S., Harlavan, Y., Tarawneh, K., Rabba, I., Weinberger, R., Khalil, I., and Peltz, S. (2001), "New K-Ar ages of basalts from the Harrat Ash Shaam volcanic field in Jordan: Implications for the span and duration of the upper-mantle upwelling beneath the western Arabian plate" Geology 29(2):171–174
Salf, S.I. (1988), "Field and petrographic characteristics of Cenozoic basaltic rocks, Northwestern Saudi Arabia" Journal of African Earth Sciences, 7(5):805–809
Weinstein, Y., Navon, O., Altherr, R., and Stein, M., (2006) "The role of lithospheric mantle heterogeneity in the generation of Plio-Pleistocene alkali basalt suites from NW Harrat Ash Shaam (Israel)", Journal of Petrology 47(5):1017–1050
Al Kwatli, M.A., Gillot, P.Y., Zeyen, H., Hildenbrand, A., and Al Gharib, I., 2012. Volcano-tectonic evolution of the northern part of the Arabian plate in the light of new K-Ar ages and remote sensing: Harrat Ash Shaam volcanic province (Syria). Tectonophysics, 580, 192–207.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Black Desert.
Note: Mountains are sorted in alphabetical order, unless where it concerns ranges. The highest confirmed mountains in each country are indicated with 'HP', and those with the highest peak are indicated with 'HP', bearing in mind that in the UAE, the highest mountain and the mountain with the highest peak are different.
Outcrops are indicated with 'OC', and
outliers with 'OL', and
anticlines with 'AC'.
Volcanoes are indicated with 'V',
volcanic craters with 'VC',
lava fields with 'LF', and
volcanic fields with 'VF'.