When COVID-19 shut down the country, Thomas Stober, professor of earth sciences at Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, devoted himself to studying sand dunes in the Al Wathba Desert.
The desert is located in the east of Abu Dhabi city, and is famous for a beautiful oasis that arose due to a leak from a water treatment facility, according to CNN, which indicated that the area is now a fertile land that attracts flocks of migratory flamingos known as “flamingos”.
The desert contains impressive forms of fossil dunes, formed by strong winds.
During the forced isolation, and the geology professor’s inability to visit other places, Stober studied these dunes.
Stober explained that these dunes were formed through cycles of freezing and thawing over a period extending from 20,000 years to 7,000 years.
“There are interesting questions about changes in sea level during the last ice ages that still have to be answered,” he said.
“It’s a very complicated story… we are continuing to study it,” Stober added, noting that these studies help understand the phenomenon of sea level rise today.
He said the sand dunes could be evidence that this desert is the “source of inspiration” behind the story of Noah’s Flood, which appears in the Qur’an, Bible and Torah.
He explained that the Arabian Gulf region is very shallow, that its depth does not exceed 120 meters, and that it was land during the Ice Age 20 thousand years ago.
According to Stober, the Tigris and Euphrates drained into the Indian Ocean during this period, not into the Gulf as today.
He added that it is possible that this gulf was a low fertile land, and was inhabited by humans 8 thousand years ago, and that these sand dunes were formed after the sea level rose very quickly at the end of the Ice Age, and that the population of this area had witnessed the rise.
He continued: “Perhaps this event left a collective memory, the impact of which appeared in the three religions.”