Somalia's Mega Ripples + Scabland

[00:00:00]This is the horn of Africa and this desert is covered in braided ripple formations.

[00:00:06]These form underneath braided streams that have the energy of transverse waves in the current. They are evidence of incredible amounts of past flow in what is now an arid desert. These ripples show over mile wide rivers and are found all over.

[00:00:30]covering hundreds of miles in Somalia and Ethiopia.

[00:00:35]They are found, most numerous, pouring down into the large valleys of the region.

[00:00:42]And these ripples themselves are found in shallow valleys in the path of braided streams.

[00:00:55]with the many tributaries and distributes of the rivers that formed them.

[00:01:02]Because of this, the ripples are orientated in many different directions to stay perpendicular to the curving current.

[00:01:15]This proves that they were formed from water and not wind because wind blows consistently over an entire landscape. especially on relatively flat terrain, which most of these ripples are on.

[00:01:35]Wind makes dune ripples in a consistent orientation and not ones that loop in a circle or spread out on a fan deposit.

[00:01:55]Since these ripples were made by the sinosoidal motion of transverse waves, they are rounded and symmetrical.

[00:02:08]This is something that is not consistent with windblown dunes since they have a steep slip face at about 34°.

[00:02:17]This is the angle of repose, which is the steepest angle the grains can be stably stacked to. Then they avalanche down and the slip face progresses. This is how sand dunes move.

[00:02:32]These African ripples are just like the rounded mega ripples in Montana's Missoula basin.

[00:02:41]No one would call these windblown dunes because they are not shaped like dunes.

[00:02:49]When the Missoula basin suddenly flooded, it created these ripples with a wavelength of 280 ft, which sounds impressive until you measure the ripples in Somalia, which have a large variety of wavelengths, including 700 ft, 900 ft, 1,200 ft, and even 1,500 ft.

[00:03:16]In this valley where the slowing water collected, it erased a lot of these ripples and smaller 280 ft ripples can be found in this valley which is actually a basin.

[00:03:32]The different sizes and orientations of these ripples is all expected with origin but makes no sense for wind.

[00:03:47]These ripples can also be compared to those of the Washington Scablands, which has ripples that average around 240 ft in wavelength with only a few examples over 300 ft.

[00:04:02]They are found inside the river channels just like the ones in Africa.

[00:04:17]And they are found on large fan deposits.

[00:04:23]Just like the ones in Africa, these ripples are so underststudied that I am somehow the only source that even mentions them. And the AI overview basically repeats everything that I have said in my previous videos. So since this amazing landscape is completely ignored, here are some questions that I think would yield some important answers.

[00:04:55]What is the composition of the ripples?

[00:04:58]Are they only made of sand grains or do they have larger rocks in them? Rounded river rocks would absolutely prove water flow origin.

[00:05:10]And what is the actual slope of these ripples? We know they are rounded from sinosoidal motion. The actual slope would be important to know.

[00:05:21]And what is the amplitude? Because amplitude can actually be a better measurement than wavelength in determining the power and depth of the water current. A large amplitude that I think would be greater than the Washington and Missoula mega ripples would be very interesting to know in order to compare the two flooding events. But the altitude data on Google Earth is not fine-tuned enough to determine this.

[00:05:53]The current of this water ended decisively because slower currents would erase these ripples and destroy them. which can be seen in some parts of these valleys.

[00:06:10]Small streams that damage some of these ripples can be seen in northwest Somalia.

[00:06:22]But the best evidence of huge water flow in this area has to be the scour.

[00:06:29]Oh yeah, this is a scab land. Scour are a vague term for a depression caused by erosion.

[00:06:39]There can be scoured channels that appear and disappear within a relatively short distance.

[00:06:49]Elongated or teardrop scour happen in an even shorter distance and are from the undulation of water flow and circular scour from the turbulence in the flow and can be started from the undulation as well.

[00:07:08]In these scour a sequence of berms can be found on one side just like the Carolina bays.

[00:07:17]and the scour in Australia.

[00:07:24]This is a scab land just like Washington which has scour mounds all around them.

[00:07:36]The scour in Kenya also have mounds all around them.

[00:07:43]And Kenya has some of the best mounds in the world, which do such a great job of showing how water flow flowing between them carves the mounds.

[00:07:56]Similar to how skiers create moguls by skiing between them.

[00:08:03]There are large shallow scour in Somalia that are nearly a mile wide. And in Ethiopia they reach that mile mark.

[00:08:16]Huge flooding events is known for making scoured landscapes but wind is unable to dig scour especially on flat land.

[00:08:28]Although wind scouring is the dominant uniformitarian theory for the mysterious Carolina bays, but there is no observational evidence of wind being able to do this.

[00:08:41]If you go into an inlet like Wapa Bay in Washington, you can find a smallcale version of scour that were made by tidal currents.

[00:08:55]They look just like the scour in Africa.

[00:09:13]And I think that the scour one of the best evidence to prove that this is a landscape carved by water flow.

[00:09:22]But of course, the braided ripple formations are the most iconic feature of this landscape that show exactly where the water went and how the water undulated to make these ripples of such amazing wavelength.

[00:09:41]Thanks for watching. Please like and subscribe and you can support me on Patreon. I would appreciate that a lot.

[00:09:48]And you guys have a great day.

[00:10:08]Heat. Heat.

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[00:10:56]everybody.

[00:11:05]Hey Heat. Heat. N.

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