In the Sahara Desert, about three hours south of Cairo, there is a site of more than 500 Eocene whale skeletons lying on the surface.
You read that right. There are the remains of whales in the desert.
John Dolson, who is a director and founder of DSP Geosciences and Associates, had been living and working in Egypt from 1994 to 2002, working for BP-Amoco, when he had heard of the place – it came to be known, appropriately enough, as “Whale Valley” – and he was fascinated.
How did the whales get there?
Egypt was submerged by the Tethys Sea intermittently throughout the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Early Tertiary Periods. During phases of submergence, many layers of sedimentary rocks were formed, one atop another. From oldest to youngest the layers included the Nubia sandstone, the Cretaceous limestones and shales and the Eocene limestones. The land of Egypt was eventually lifted above sea level, but the rise was gradual, so that the north part of the country remained submerged and continued to accumulate sediments longer than the southern part.
Such an area, Dolson felt – even though, he said, at the time it was on “nobody’s radar” – needed further evaluation and, if the claims about it were true, protection. Besides, the fossils were lying on top of the oil productive El Gindi Basin.
Protection?
“I had met with the Egyptian Geological Survey about these areas and to really collect things, you needed a permit, but most never bothered,” he said.
The area was not only creating a buzz among scientists, but also among those wanting to collect fossils and artifacts who swing by “in pickups and jeeps,” Dolson explained.
Specifically, the Whale Valley – “Wadi Al-Hitan” in Arabic – is unusual, not just for having such a large concentration of fossil whales (406 documented at the time), but having them in a relatively small area. They are also accompanied by sirenian (manatee), fish, stingray and other marine and estuarine fossils. Phil Gingerich, emeritus professor of geology, biology and anthropology at the University of Michigan and the reigning expert on vertebrate paleontology, speculates that the whales gave birth in ancient Eocene estuaries, like many do today, avoiding birthing in the open ocean. Gingerich had noted that up to 40 percent of the fossils are from juvenile whales. But at the time, the reason was a complete unknown: Was it beaching, or some mass die-off?
AAPG’s History of Involvement
Dolson was also intrigued by his discovery that there was an ongoing effort by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency and the Italian Protectorate (a branch of the Italian government) to try to protect Whale Valley.
Dolson thought this was an important move and should be pursued.
He was mesmerized by what he saw.
“On the first day in the field we were all stunned at the incredible exposures, ability to ‘walk out’ shoreline facies from offshore, through tidal flats, beaches land areas,” he said. “You could even stand back and see the facies changes in the Eocene exposures from paleo landward (south) to a subsiding basin to the north.”
He and Ahmed El Barkooky, a geologist at Cairo University who also works with Shell Egypt, who also happens to be an AAPG Visiting Geologist, in preparation for writing a field guide, began running field trips to Whale Valley. But they needed EEAA permission to go there. That was granted under the condition that they submit documents detailing the “geological worth of the area.” They supplied multiple documents of analog sites like Friends of Dinosaur Ridge, Dinosaur National Monument, The Tyrell Museum in Canada and other sites, urging them to protect these outcrops and then develop ways to educate people about them and encourage more research.
Dolson and Barkooky supported the EEAA’s desire to have the area designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
An AAPG conference was planned for 2002, which was noteworthy because AAPG had previously only held a 150-member Hedberg research conference on rifts in Egypt 1998, an effort Dolson and Barkooky had also led. But AAPG had never held an international conference in Egypt. As it happened, more than 1,800 people attended the five-society 2002 conference (AAPG/EPEX/SEG/EGS/EAGE).
Dolson and co-authors Barkooky, Fred Weir of Apache Egypt, Gingrich, Nina Prochazka of North-South Consultants Exchange and Mark Shann of BP-Egypt published the field guide for the conference. The guide also stressed the potential for economic development through eco-tourism and was supported financially by Apache Egypt Companies.
And it was at the conference, that letters written from field trip attendees were sent to UNESCO Egypt to get that designation, including input from 16 authors from 10 companies, as well as more than 30 participants. The EEAA even made sure television coverage of a desert barbecue they hosted for the field trip attendees brought even more local support.
“After the conference, where we had poster sessions set up, 204 AAPG members endorsed the UNESCO proposal, representing 12 countries,” said Dolson. “This is exactly with the EEAA wanted from us starting back in 2000: international recognition and support.”
Dolson said the Association was the spark the area needed.
“The AAPG conference and resulting field guide and reports were an essential component of documents going to the UNESCO Egypt staff. AAPG’s involvement went from nothing in 1998 to creation of the UNESCO site in 2005,” he said.
(Dolson also would be the Geographic Information System mapper for the final UNESCO report, which was submitted in 2003.)
New and Improved Field Guide
That field guide, incidentally, has just been updated and now includes:
u Historical context to AAPG involvement in helping create UNESCO World Heritage status for Whale Valley, in addition to protecting adjacent areas and future sites of geological, archeological and eco-tourism potential
- Travel tips, including lodging and guides
- New detailed cross-sections based on new wells and seismic lines
- Updated paleogeographic Upper Eocene and Oligocene paleo-geographic maps
- Update of regional oil and gas distribution and outcrop exposures: Outcrop highstand systems tracts versus offshore lowstand deep water facies – outcrop and subsurface evidence of multiple Oligo-Miocene incision events
- Complete update of key publications
What Geologists Live For
The UNESCO designation ultimately happened in 2005 and in the ensuing 20 years, visitation has reached 30,000 visitors annually. The associated bed/breakfasts, eco-lodges, restaurants and hotels envisioned in 2002 are now a reality.
Additionally, as a direct result of that 2002 conference, seven AAPG student chapters were formed. Since then, student field trips have become standard to this area since the publication.
For his part, Barkooky said a new proposal for a UNESCO Global Geopark Designation has been raising awareness of the importance the heritage and history of el-Fayyūm.
There’s something more.
“The UNESCO Global Geopark will give local people a sense of pride in their region and strengthen their identification with the area.”
He said, aside from spurring innovative local enterprises, new jobs and high-quality training courses, geological resources of the area are protected.
The work to get the UNESCO designation, and the continuing efforts to make the area attractive, sustainable and safe involves a lot of moving parts, including some powerful ones.
“Politics definitely enters into the mix,” said Dolson. “You have to get governmental and private sectors ‘stakeholders’ on-board.”
It wasn’t always a smooth mix.
There was a moment early on, when the proposal to get the designation was entering a crucial phase, Dolson noticed something was off.
“I had noticed the coordinates for the protected area would be required to contain the Whale Valley boundaries,” he said.
Unfortunately, the draft’s final report had the boundaries wrong. It did not lie completely within the overall protected area. At first, authorities told him, the proposed Whale Valley boundaries couldn’t be changed.
“They said they couldn’t, as it might embarrass high-level managers,” he said.
The next day he got a phone call.
“I was told, ‘We fixed it. Mubarak enlarged the Protected Area.’”
If that name sounds familiar, it was Hosni Mubarak, the country’s president at the time.
“Needless to say,” said Dolson, “I was a bit stunned and excited about that solution!”
Ultimately, the UNESCO designation put Whale Valley on that radar screen – an international radar screen.
“It also guarantees protections within a broader area. Part of the Whale Valley boundaries are off-limits except for researchers. Access also gets guaranteed. In 2002, we had to jeep in with many others, with sand ladders on hand and some dodgy steep inclines and narrow pathways to the sites. Now you can drive on paved roads through the Faiyum City to get there and then walk the outcrops once in the Park.”
What happened in Egypt, he feels, can happen elsewhere.
“I truly think every AAPG region or section has something potential like this that could be protected or developed,” he said.
Dolson said Association members live for such things.
“Our members are geoscientists first. Many, if not most, didn’t take geology wanting to go into mineral or oil exploration. Much of that came later, but the best geoscientists I know simply love climbing around outcrops, doing field work, messing with mineral or fossil collections … they just love this field,” he said.