Shuttle images reveal Egypt's lost great lake

A huge lake once waxed and waned deep in the sandy heart of the Egyptian Sahara, geologists have found.

Radar images taken from the space shuttle confirm that a lake broader than Lake Erie once sprawled a few hundred kilometers west of the Nile, researchers report in the December issue of Geology. Since the lake first appeared around 250,000 years ago, it would have ballooned and shrunk until finally petering out around 80,000 years ago.

Read more: Science News