THE PARK – GEOGRAPHY

Millions of years ago, the continents of our planet were all attached together in a great land mass called Pangaea. Over thousands of years, this mass broke up in a process known as ‘continental drift’.

The most recent rift, 30 million years ago, created the Red Sea between the African and Arabian tectonic plates. The Red Sea is part of an area characterised by depression and faults, called “the great valley of the steep slopes”, which extends from Lebanon in the Middle East as far as Mozambique in Africa.

The upward movement of the tectonic plate has caused the formation of the Red Sea Mountains in the eastern desert. The most recent movement happened around 25 million years ago, creating the mountains of the Red Sea, which are actually a series of parallel east-west ranges. In the midst of these uplands, dry rivers called ‘wadis’ zig-zag across the arid ground.

The abundant rains that fell in the region during the rainy period about 2 million years ago created the wadis along which the water flowed to the sea or into the Nile.

Wadi el Gimal, the wadi that gives its name to the whole Park, is 60 km long, and is the third-largest wadi in the eastern desert, that runs to the Red Sea.