The Black and White Deserts in Egypt

The road from Cairo to the Western Desert is smooth, it takes you slowly but surely from the busy capital to an imaginary Neverland where everything is white.

The White Desert is certainly the most popular attraction in the Western Desert of Egypt.. In fact, in 2002, the area of the White Desert was declared as a natural protected area to preserve the charm and the beauty of the area.

Among the most important landmarks of the White Desert in Egypt is that huge 20 meters high mountain that can be seen from far away with a magical view at night and it is called the chisel. Some Bedouins, due to the shape of the rocks, call this mountain the hands of God.

 

The most important landmark of the Black one, on the other hand, putting into consideration that it is much smaller than the White Desert, is the Gebel El Engleeze, or the Mountain of the English; as this was the location where the British troops resided during World War I

The magic formations of the White and the Black Desert

The White Desert took its name from these astonishing Phantasmagorical pinnacles that seem like bright white different types of animals, bizarre shapes, mushrooms, and different kinds of numerous shapes that form a landscape that is hardly found anywhere else in the whole globe.

 In fact, the rock formations of the White Desert were made out of chalk that was deposited in the shallow sea that used to exist in ancient times. This was roughly more than one million years ago.

This chalk mainly consists of a huge quantity of numerous microorganisms and some tiny microscopic  celled algae and some calcium carbonate cells that were formed at the bottom of this ancient sea.

When the water  withdrew away from the location of the sea during what was called the Tertiary Period, the rocks were actually shaped by the wind of the Western Desert in Egypt.

There were also the effects of some other natural elements like the different seasons of weather and the rainfall time in the area that contributed to the emergence of these weird looking formation of white rocks

 

The travelers spending their vacation in Egypt can easily view the seashells and the fossils inside the rocks of the white desert.

It is common as well to find in these rock formations some iron disulfide; something that has the same elements as pyrite.The Black Desert on the other side was formed due to the presence of some small black rocks all over the area.

 There are also some volcano mountains. The Black desert offers its guests with amazing views and natural portraits of these black-colored small rocks.

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