Jun 13 1976
From The Space Library
Photographs from U.S. remote-sensing satellites had revealed the existence of water, oil, uranium, and other minerals in the Egyptian Sahara and the Sinai peninsula, the Washington Post reported. Egyptian scientist Ahmed Abdel Hady, head of an Egyptian-American scientific team in charge of a remote-sensing project that had been receiving data from satellites since 1972, said in an AP interview that the satellites revealed enough water in the Sinai desert "to turn most of it green." (Most of Sinai was still occupied by the Israelis, who seized it in 1967.)
The Egyptian government, working in cooperation with Okla. State Univ. and the Univ. of Mich., had an annual budget of $1.2 million for study of the untapped resources, Abdel Hady said.
Although the satellite data had shown that highlands in northern Sinai and the coastal strip of Wadi el Arish, totaling more than 770 km , concealed a huge water potential, he declined to go into details because "I don't want to make it difficult for Egypt when it negotiates the next Israeli pullout." However, he described photographs of an area about 1350 km` in Sinai that showed three different areas rich in petroleum and natural gas: the Gulf of Suez, with oil reserves already proven; the Mediterranean offshore area in northern Sinai, not yet explored; and a large area in southern 'Sinai marked by sedimentary rocks carrying natural gas. Uranium was also detected in northwest and southern Sinai, and west central Sinai contained huge amounts of silica that could lead to a glass industry, Abdel Hady said. Besides the desert potential, he added, the images also showed significant food-growing potential in a previously unnoted fertile area measuring about 965 km` near the Nile basin; the images were also used to study the Qattara Depression in the desert west of the Nile, site of a huge proposed hydroelectric project. (W Post, 13 June 76, G-2)
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