Chott el Fejej, also known as Chott el Fedjedj and Chott el Fejaj, is a long, narrow inlet of the

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...

Chott el Djerid Chott el Djerid ( ar, شط الجريد ') also spelled ''Sciott Gerid'' and ''Shott el Jerid'', is a chott, a large endorheic salt lake in southern Tunisia. The name can be translated from the Arabic into English as "Lagoon of the Land of Palms" ...

in southern

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

History and geography

The bottom of Chott el Fejej lies below sea level and runs in a narrow path from the main body of Chott el Djerid to the Tunisian desert

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

El Hamma El Hamma ( ar, الحامة ') is an oasis town located in the Gabès Governorate, 30 kilometers west of Gabès, Tunisia and near the eastern end of Chott el Fejej. Its population in 2014 was 73,512. Etymology The Arabic name ( حامة ) come ...

, near the

Gulf of Gabès The Gulf of Gabes (or Cabès, Cabes, Gaps; ar, خليج قابس, ḫalīǧ Qābis), also known as Lesser Syrtis (from grc, Μικρά Σύρτις, Mikrá Sýrtis; la, Syrtis Minor), contrasting with the Greater Syrtis in Libya, is a gulf on ...

on the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

. The distance from the point where the Chott el Fejej joins the Chott el Djerid to its end near El Hamma is approximately . Along its length, Chott el Fejej never widens beyond and in many places is considerably more narrow. The easterly end of the Chott el Fejej is separated from Mediterranean by an approximately wide ridge of sand near El Hamma. It was this narrow sandy ridge, separating the Chott el Fejej from the Mediterranean Sea, which brought it to the attention of various geographers, engineers and diplomats. These figures looked to create an inland "

Sahara Sea The Sahara Sea was the name of a hypothetical macro-engineering project which proposed flooding endorheic basins in the Sahara Desert with waters from the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea. The goal of this unrealized project was to create an ...

" by channelling the waters of the Mediterranean into Sahara Desert basins which lay below sea level. A noted proposal to this effect was put forward in the late 1800s by French geographer François Élie Roudaire and the creator of the Suez Canal,

Ferdinand de Lesseps Ferdinand Marie, Comte de Lesseps (; 19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times ...

, but stalled after the French government withdrew funding. Later proposals, made as part of

Operation Plowshare Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes. The program was organized in June 1957 as part of the worldwide Atoms for Peace efforts. As ...

, posited that

nuclear explosives A nuclear explosive is an explosive device that derives its energy from nuclear reactions. Almost all nuclear explosive devices that have been designed and produced are nuclear weapons intended for warfare. Other, non-warfare, applications for nuc ...

could be used to dig the proposed canal from the Mediterranean to the Chott el Fejej and other below-sea-level basins of the Sahara; these proposals were also fruitless.

Geology

The Chott el Fejej is a typical

chott In geology, a chott, shott, or shatt (; ar, شط, šaṭṭ, lit=bank, coast) is a salt lake in Africa's Maghreb that stays dry for much of the year but receives some water in the winter. The elevation of a chott surface is controlled by the pos ...

, or dry lake, of the Sahara. It is underlain, however, by a major

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

known as the Fejej Dome. This anticline and other surrounding structures are argued to be the result of

rifting In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben ...

in the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

period.

References

{{Reflist Lakes of Tunisia Endorheic lakes of Africa Kebili Governorate Gabès Governorate