Okay, friends, let's talk topography or terrain or relief if you like or landscape of the greater Middle East. Now, generally speaking, we're talking about the landscape of the Middle East, it's gonna alternate between a couple of very distinct high, rugged mountain ranges although not that many given the size of this really big region and a few very distinct uplifted plateaus although not really that many given the size of the region. Because most of the region is huge tracts of dry lowland areas. Hmm. But we can put a bit more detail in this picture Let's take a quick topographic tour of the Middle East From West to East which coincidentally aligns with the themes of less complex to more complex as we head from Morocco all the way up to Iran and Turkey. Hmm. How so? Well let's get to that now, shall we? Let's start in North Africa which, as you know from the last lecture is a huge, vast area of desert and semi-arid areas that actually have no great relief. And by that I mean not relief from the sunbaked sands and the sweating and the temperatures and the blowing sands. I mean relief in terms of terrain and topography, mountains and stuff. Most of this vast area and you know how vast this area is you now know that the entire continental US would fit inside of North Africa. And of this vast area, virtually all of it is below 500 meters above sea level. 500 meters. Yeah, that's like 1500 feet above sea level. That's barely a hill and it's not a mountain. That's not a lot of elevation. Most of it's less than 1000 above sea level? Yeah, it's kind of big coastal plains all of hundreds of miles inland from the coast It's not got a lot of the terrain/topography action. Were it not for the brutal temperatures and lack of beverages, one could easily traverse the Saharan desert and all of North Africa north to south or east to west without even having a good pair of hiking or climbing boots. It's mostly flat. Now everything I saw, of course, take with a grain of salt. When we're talking about terrain over big areas, of course there can be little cliffs and little hills and river valleys and dry river valleys which are called wadis in Arabic but we're talking about no big ranges with huge 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 feet above sea level. Most of this area is below 1,000 feet elevation with a couple of exceptions. Remember we're still talking about North Africa here. The exceptions are--I've referenced ergs already, yeah. Another cool geologic term you now know. The sand dune areas of the Sahara that Can get heights of 2,000-2,200 feet about sea level. But those are sand mountains. They're not hard to climb because they're rocky or tough, it's just that you'll sink in the sand. There are also a wide variety of landscapes the Sahara which I pointed out last lecture too. Meaning that there are actually subdivisions of the Sahara Desert I didn't even talk about the Nubian Desert and the Libyan Desert. There's also lots of different areas of ergs named erg areas all across the Sahara. And indeed there are different rocky outcrop, mountainous areas of the Sahara. One of note that you've never heard of is the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. It's a rocky area with some uplift that the highest point is 3,445 meters above sea level. That's 11,300 feet. Oh okay, hold on now. That's a mountain, okay? But it's an isolated area of uplift and mountains It's not like a huge range that's dividing things The only one of those that exist in North Africa is the Atlast Mountains. [laughs] We've all heard of the Atlas... I know you've heard of the Atlas Mountains. You've probably even like middle school or high school, you had to learn the mountains of Africa. And so the list was the Atlas Mountains and that's it. [laughs] Hang on, we'll get to another one in a little bit, but The Atlas Mountains I'm sure you've heard of and they are a significant range, but they're not that significant. And I'm not trying to diss or offend my Moroccan friends, of which I have many, because the Atlas Range is awesome. But it's not significant in terms of it's not a huge divider like the Andes Mountains or the Himalayan Mountains, mountains that are so tough, no one can get across them and people are divided on either side. No, the Atlas isn't that, although it does play a bit of a role of dividing things a little bit. Let's go into more elaborate detail on that. First off, the Atlas Mountain range is not a single line of mountains in Northwestern Africa. It's a series of ranges. There are the Anti-Atlas Mountains, the High Atlas Mountains, the Middle Atlas Mountains, the Tell Atlas Mountains, the Saharan Atlas Mountains. And the same geological formation which makes all these mountains kind of keeps going eastward to the Aures Mountain range over in Algeria and Tunisia. Now this is a significant mountain range. Don't get me wrong. High peaks range from 3,000 to 4,000 meters Again you're looking at 9,000, 10,000, 12,000 feet above sea level. Okay, that's a tough mountain to climb So it is a bit of a separator It does help isolate or semi-isolate the coastal fringe of North Africa from the rest of the Sahara. But, it has not historically divided peoples. Meaning there's been lots of trade routes and passages across these mountains and people have gone back and forth in time and memorial. But it does serve as a slight divider that I do wanna outline a little bit here because it'll help you understand some other parts of the Middle East I'm getting ready to point out. Meaning that this a significant enough and high enough mountain range that it does affect the local climate and the local biomes. So what you have is this Atlas Mountain Range which kind of separates the dry interior Saharan Desert part of North Africa from this coastal fringe that runs from Morocco through Algeria all the way to Tunisia. And what that does is, as some moisture comes in off the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea, it has a tendency to fall there on the coastal fringe, or as it starts to go up the mountains it then falls there a precipitation which collects and there are some streams and and very small rivers which flow from the Atlas Mountains to the coast and this sets up a situation that the coastal fringe of these countries is much more Mediterranean in climate/biome than the rest of North Africa. We talked about this last lecture. However, let me take it to another cultural level. Not only is coastal Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia much more climatically Mediterranean, but they're culturally much more Mediterranean which means they face the Mediterranean. The Atlas are their backdrop and they face the Mediterranean. Their diets and their cuisine and their culture and their food is much more Mediterranean and they face Mediterranean Europe. Meaning that this coastal fringe has had much more interaction with Mediterranean world and Mediterranean Europe than the rest of the Middle East. These folks in this part of the Middle East have invaded Europe, have been invaded by Europe themselves, have traded with Europe for centuries, have interacted with Europe and the Mediterranean for a long time. Point being the Atlas aren't a huge dividing range, they're not keeping people separate, but they have created enough physical and cultural difference that there is a bit of difference between this part of the Middle East and the rest. This coastal fringe interacts much more with Europe than they do say with Saudi Arabia or Iran. Which is in the same region, but way far away on the other side of the desert. That make a little bit of sense? If you go to these places, you will see it, by the way. Okay? They would consider themselves probably more Mediterranean than Middle Eastern. I think, but I could be wrong. But I'm spending way too much time here in the coastal fringe of Northwest Africa. We're talking topographically about the whole region so let's head back east cross the ergs on our eastward journey and get to the core of the Middle East to the Arabian Peninsula. Ah! Okay. Now we're back at the core. Cross the desert, to the Promised Land, the Core, the Arabian Peninsula. When it comes to the Arabian Peninsula, topographically they're really wicked cool in my opinion because they have this cool little thing called an escarpment which runs all the way down the western fringe the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Not just Saudi Arabia, by the way, which dominates the Arabian Peninsula, but it's an escarpment that runs all the way down the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, actually kind of starts in Jordan, runs all the way through Saudi Arabia into Yemen. Okay, wait a minute. Stop, stop, stop. Stop the boat. Time out. What's an escarpment of which I've now named a couple times? An escarpment is another geologic term that connotates a quick jump in elevation between two different areas that have relatively the same elevation here and the same elevation here, but radically different between them. So it's a quick jump...and I am applying this mostly to coastal margins across the planet, although it can happen in the interior. But it's one big area at one elevation and you have a quick jump up to another big area of different elevation, a higher elevation. And you see this a lot in coastal areas. Usually when I think of escarpments, I think of the classic big time escarpments in South Africa, the whole continent of Africa, down in south is one big escarpment. You have a very narrow coastal ribbon that then jumps up very quickly, mountains that jump up elevated plateau which jumps up two or three or four thousand feet above sea level. So it's different, okay? And the kind of proto-typical one in your minds that you may envision if you've been there before is Cape Town, South Africa It's right there in your face if you see a picture of it. It's like coast mountains. Tableland, plateau it just jumps straight up. So two different areas of elevation with a very quick jump up in between That's an escarpemtn. And Saudi Arabia has one too which helps form part of the Sarawat Mountain range. This isn't one you'll ever hear anywhere, but I want you to be smarter are I want you to understand the Arabian Peninsula because all of this part of the planet is going to be of increasing importance for the rest of your life here in the 21st century. So the Sarawat Mountains are part of this escarpment, this quick jump up from the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula Again, we're not talking about a huge mountain range, not even as high as the Atlas. Averages around 1,200-2,000 meters above sea level. 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 feet. These aren't insurmountable heights. They're not huge dividers, but again it's more that it's this jump up to a higher place which helps kind of separate out this whole western coastal fringe of the Arabian Peninsula. And its has historically, by the way. Not only does it separate it out climatically and biome-wise, and I can make this short because it's exactly the scenario I just described in Northwest Africa on that Moroccan-Algerian coast, that little escarpment mountain range in the back helps form a Mediterranean style climate on the western seaboard of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Okay? Water is... Wetter air coming in off the Red Sea falls and precipitates down there, so much more Mediterranean than desert, which is in the interior. And this coastal ribbon separated from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula by this escarpment this kind of cliff-like thing, it's always been a distinct area historically, some would argue even today. So distinct that you may hear it referred to the western coastal fringe of Saudi Arabia is sometimes referred to as the Hejaz. H-E-J-A-Z. Why not? Let's go ahead and make you learn that now. I think, and I've heard this from insiders, that the Hejaz region actually...yes, it's part of Saudi Arabia, but culturally, and historically they'd say, "No, no, no. We're different from the hicks over there in the rest of Saudi Arabia." You might've heard it here first. Anybody from Saudi Arabia, it me up and tell me if I'm completely off base with that. And it's partly because of the topography and the climate and I would be remiss if I didn't point this out that the very holy cities of Mecca and Medina are in this Hejaz region which is partially defined by the topography. Hmmm... Interesting how the physical world comes into play to understand the human world. But I'm now waxing poetic about the Arabian Peninsula. Let me back it back up. We're not talking about Saudi Arabia and just this single escarpment. You actually have the same scenario, the topographic climatic scenario that takes place a little further north of where I'm at right now in Lebanon. Lebanon has a small mountain range. You'll never remember this. They're called the Lebanon Mountains. Surprise! [laughs] You might have even heard of a very important biblical reference in the Lebanon Mountains called Mountain Lebanon. [laughs] See how this...it's so difficult. Mount Lebanon in the Lebanon Mountains in Lebanon. But this little range, and it's not small, small, it's about the same as the mountains I just described in Saudi Arabia, you're looking at 2,000, 3,000, maybe 4,000 meters of elevation, actually more like two to three. So not a gigantic mountain range, but they do serve as a divider, part of the border between Lebanon and Syria to its east hmmm...that's interesting. And much like that escarpment in Saudi Arabia and much like the Atlas Mountains in Northwest Africa they separate the drier interior to the coastal fringes. So most of Lebanon is a coastal fringe leading up to the mountains that is Mediterranean style climate that gets more precipitation and now we're saying the same story over and over again. But that's okay. Repetition helps you remember stuff. So the Lebanon Mountains aren't necessarily an escarpment, but it's a smaller mountain range that does serve as a bit of a barrier that helps define Lebanon. Lebanon, historically, has been wetter, and this is part of northern Israel as well. And Palestine. But they've been slightly wetter and much more Mediterranean in climate and arid or semi-arid to their east. The mountains of Lebanon used to be forested. I think the Lebanese cedar is the national tree and used to cover most of this area. I think they've logged it out of existence, but if you look at the flag of Lebanon, it has a tree on it. Back to our last lecture about dryness and aridity, yes, that is the theme for most of the Middle East, but not for Lebanon and not for these areas that I've now defined because they're influenced by the topography and terrain to not be as dry. Okay. Let's go south though. Let's go back south and finish off the Arabian Peninsula. The same effect okay, this mountainous areas near the coast the help define out Mediterranean style climate the same effect, the same escarpment that I talked about in Saudi Arabia down that Arabian Peninsula gets magnified when you get to Yemen. Yemen is a way huger version of what I've now described because the mountains get higher and higher. Oh, that seems like a good test question. As you go further south in the Arabian Peninsula, the mountains get higher and higher and higher. So it's virtually the same range the same topographic settings, mountain range down the western coast but they keep getting bigger. And when you get to Yemen, it's kind of a big elevated plateau with big bigger mountain ranges which kind of rim it and the coastal fringes of Yemen are the same story, kind of Mediterranean style climate but the mountains are much bigger with the bigger peaks being in excess of 3,000 meters about sea level. I believe the highest mountain in Yemen is also the highest mountain in the Arabian Peninsula and it's Jabal an Nabi Shu'ayb at 3,666 meters, that's 12,028 feet above sea level. Whew! That's what we call a mountain. That's big time. You better get your hiking boots for that one. That's a climb. Now let me back it up and look at the Arabian Peninsula altogether. Now that I've told you those mountains along that western escarpment get higher as you go south, you can kind of envision the whole Arabian Peninsula, all of it, from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, all the way up through Kuwait and Iraq, think of it like if you were to have a big block, a cinder block in front of you you could just pick up that block and tilt it. And you pick it up where that escarpment is that I've now told you in those Lebanese Mountains. And just tilt it. Meaning that in the Arabian Peninsula, in central Saudi Arabia and Yemen, they have kind of an uplifted plateau. Uplifted by that escarpment and those mountains I've described. And then it's just kind of like a sliding board that tilts all the way down to the Persian Gulf. A slow slide down. Now I'm overgeneralizing, which I have a tendency to do when we're describing big parts of the planet Yes, there's river valleys and wadis and cliffs and mountains in between this, but generally speaking, you're looking at a a plateau that's tilted that slides all the way down to sea level at the Persian Gulf. And virtually all of eastern Saudi Arabia, eastern Oman, all of the small gulf states like Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, all of them, even the whole southern half of Iraq, the southwestern quadrant of Iran, all of these areas are like less than 100 feet above sea level. They're very low-lying big, huge coastal plains which spread out across this whole vast area. Which plays back into the same idea about most of the Saharan region, most of Egypt, most of all of the area is lower lying kind of "wooo", not much terrain stuff going on. However, this subtle slide that I've talked about is going to be abruptly interrupted as we finish off this tour by hitting north and west into Iran and Turkey. 'Cuz it's about to get topographically crazy up in here when we get to Iran and Turkey. Everything I've talked about so far terrain-wise is pretty light compared to what we're going to hit getting into these areas. The mountains in Turkey and Iran enclose two high, uplifted plateaus. Let me uplift it over the camera. Because what you have in both of these countries which we classically count as part of the Middle East are radical differences that everything else I've talked about thus far. Both of these countries, Iran and Turkey, are both pretty much almost encircled by significant and formidable mountain ranges which uplift, on average, the whole interior parts of the country. And the interior parts of Iran and Turkey, and I'm just spitballing here, generalizing, but in general, anywhere you are in Turkey or Iran, you're probably two, three, or four thousand feet above sea level. So you could be in a flat area and be looking at a mountain and you're a few thousand feet above sea level. That's the elevated plateau I'm talking about. All of these two countries are--woop--way higher than virtually all the rest of the Middle East that we've talked about thus far. And these enclosed high plateaus of these two states are punctuated by brackish lakes, or some have salt flats or interior deserts, some of which we've mentioned already in the desert section. We talked about Iran. And they're actually home to much moisture as well. So you have mountainous areas, forested areas, desert areas, brackish lake, salt flats. You have all kinds of stuff going on in these elevated plateaus of these two states. Let's take them one at a time. Start in Turkey. The Anatolia Plateau, and Anatolia is a term you'll hear referenced for a big part of the rest of these Middle Eastern lectures, consists of this high central plateau with a very narrow band of coastal plains all the way around. They've got a bit more up in the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, and some coastline on the Black Sea, but when it comes through the Med, very narrow coastal fringe because much like I described in escarpements, mountain ranges in Turkey jump right up off the coast. And they jump up high. There is the Koroglu and the Pontic Mountain ranges up north which kind of fringe the Black Sea area The Pontic is the one I want you to remember. And the Taurus Mountain range is in the south and it is kind of fringing the Mediterranean Sea. And again, these are not small mountain ranges. They're not round, they're not soft. These are ones you gotta climb up. Several thousand to many thousands of feet above sea level and in very short order. And therefore they enclose a much higher area in between them. Eastern Turkey, by the way, as you progress from the Mediterranean and go east keeps getting tougher and tougher. It's more of a full-on mountainous landscape. So when I'm saying it's an elevated plateau, I'm not suggesting it's a flat area in the middle. It has river valleys and mountains too. And as you go further and further east in Turkey those mountains get tougher and tougher and tougher and tougher. This area gets a lot of moisture, it's forested, lots of rain, can get very cold in the wintertime, and it is the source of some of the big rivers of this region, namely the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Aras which we'll talk about in the next section. Eastern Turkey is also home of Mount Ararat. Hey, that's another biblical reference type mountain, man. And it's at 5,127 meters above sea level. That's 16,854 feet. You don't have to know these exact numbers, just kind of round them off, though. Almost 17,000 foot peak. Okay, you ain't climbing that on a Sunday afternoon. Mount Ararat is, I think, important for biblical lore because that is one of the possible places that Noah and his ark ran into after the 40 day flood. Any of this ringing a bell? 'Cuz it's really high. If the whole world flooded, Mount Ararat would've been on of the higher places back in the day. But those big boy mountains in Turkey ain't alone. Let's now finish of and do Iran. Because Iran, much like Turkey, is rimmed defined by some significant mountain ranges and an elevated plateau between them, namely the Zagros Mountains and the Elburz or Alborz depending on the spelling in Iran. The Zagros range runs begins in northwestern Iran. It kind of seems like it's almost a continuation of the eastern mountainous fringes of Turkey. And it runs in northwestern Iran and roughly corresponds to Iran's western border, the Iran-Iraq border. It spans the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian Plateaus. So the Anatolian Plateau in Turkey, and the Iranian Plateau in Iran. This is great because these things are easy to remember. The Iranian Plateau in Iran. Of course, where else would it be? And the Iranian Plateau if you think I just got you hyped up about some Turkish peaks, watch out, man. The Zagros and the Elburz have mucho mucho peaks in excess of 12-14,000 feet above sea level. Yes. These are formidable ranges that do indeed start to separate peoples and cultures from each other like the Atlas Mountains have never done. And like the Appalachian Mountains in America never really did. So yeah, these are big boy ranges that can separate some things. They're barriers. And indeed when you're talking about barriers, I know we're talking about the physical world, but we haven't gotten anywhere near the complexities of cultures and different religions and folks in the Middle East. But go ahead and start to let it seep in. The reason that the professor is telling you all this stuff here, the beginning of the 21st century, is that to understand why there's a difference between say Iran and Saudi Arabia we need to have a grounding in the physical world. And the Zagros Mountain range is signficant. And it's a separator, it's a semi-divider. So Iran and Saudi Arabia may have a lot in common but they've always been kind of separate culturally. And the mountains play a part of that. These mountains separate Iran and Iraq. Iran and Iraq are very different culturally, historically, religiously, and they've actually fought a way against each other. Ah! Put that in your head. We'll come back to it later. The Zagros helped separate, divide Iran from Iraq and the rest of the Arab World. And again, this range and the Alborz helped defined this conflicted plateau. Iran is [woop] way higher than the surrounding area of the Middle East. Let me stress it for the second time. Despite me saying that this is a plateau just like the Anatolian Plateau, we're not talking about a flat area. It's an uplifted higher area, so it may be on average two or three or four thousand feet above sea level, but then it has mountains sitting on it. So there are areas that are more flatland but that doesn't mean it's low. Okay? And that doesn't mean there's no terrain and valleys and mountains and stuff. So just to make that point again. When it comes to the Elburz Mountain range which rim the Caspian Sea up there [whew] this is another spectacular range that you simply must try to get to in your lifetime, many peaks in excess of 15,000 feet in the Alborz Range. Beautiful well-watered area. This is the place that actually has a vibrant ski industry. Mount Damanvand has an elevation of 5,738 meters. Northwestern Iran, absolutely gorgeous, well-watered forested, can produce lots of food, and has a vibrant and growing ski industry because of the water which falls as snow when you start to get to those higher elevations. Well let's finish off our tour with this. How were some of those mountain ranges created? How do you get mountains? Now this isn't a class on geology, so I'll keep this simple and straighforward. Partly, sometimes if not many times, mountain ranges are created when you have these big land plates that smash up again each other, these plates with this theory called plate tectonics maybe you've heard of that. And I could not finish off our talk about topography and terrain in the Middle East without mentioning that one of the reasons why you have some very big ranges in Iran, namely the Zagros and some very big ranges in Turkey, namely the Taurus, is because you have different plates of plate tectonics that are smashing into each other that helped create these things millions of years ago. So if you know about plate tectonics, here's a map of the plate tectonics of the world and the theory is that there are these different plates which float around on something called the astheosphere not gonna go into detail about it right here, but these things sometimes separate from each other sometimes smash into each other. And for our story of the Middle East you should know that the Arabian plate is separating from the African plate and is being pushed into the Eurasian plate right there on the border that is the Zagros Mountains. So the Arabian plate is smashing in, the Arabian Peninsula is smashing into Iran, and thus the Zagros Mountains were formed as you have smashing of these two plates together. The Anatolian plate for its part is kind of a sub-plate that's being smashed in between the Eurasian, African, and Arabian plates. And thus, one of the other things I want you to know about Iran and Turkey in particular is given their mountainous terrains which have been created by these forces of plate tectonics they are also very different from the rest of the Middle East in that they haves significant tectonic activity. That is they got the shakes and the quakes and they get earthquakes. Both countries, Turkey and Iran, have been the scene of much seismic activity for all of recorded human history. And you will read about them all the time once every few years or once every five to ten of a significant seismic event which levels a small town or major city in one of these two great countries. You will not hear about such events in most of the rest of the Middle East. That start to make a little bit more sense now if you've heard about some of the major tectonic events that have happened in Iran and Turkey? This is part of the life. They get earthquakes and because of different reasons of building codes and maybe they're not up to speed in terms of Japanese building codes in being prepared for earthquakes, you can have significant disasters that occur due to earthquakes in these two places. Now, related tectonically related to seismic activity in those two states is that the same theory of plate tectonics where we believe that these different parts of the planet are moving towards each other creating mountains and earthquakes, or moving away from each other we have the Red Sea actually getting wider. What, what, what?! Yeah! And Africa, the continent, is splitting apart. What? What? What are you talking about? Africa's splitting apart? Yeah. Long term, and we're talking long term millions of years, millions of years from now, the whole horn of Africa Somalia and parts of Kenya will split off and probably become an island like Madagascar. But we're not talking about Africa, let's stick with the Middle East. The Red Sea is actually getting wider. Hmm. And that's because the African plate and the Arabian plate have been moving away from each other. I already told you the Arabian plate is being smashed into the Eurasian plate, right there on the Iranian border where the Zagros Mountains are. But what that has meant is that's caused the gulf it's going one direction and it's splitting away from the African plate so the Red Sea itself Saudi Arabia and Egypt [claps] used to be together. And then millions of years ago, they started to pull apart, and water rushed in and that's this thing called the Red Sea. This is part, this pulling apart of these two major plates, is part of something we call the Great Rift Valley which actually starts up in Jordan runs through the Red Sea and all the way down through Africa to Mozambique in southern Africa. And so we have the Arabian plate pulling apart but also the African plate which itself is pulling apart. You may have heard of formations like the African Great Lakes, or the Great Lakes Region of Africa including the lakes like Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. They're part of the same geologic pulling apart okay, of these major plates. But we won't talk about Sub-Saharan Africa right now. Let's get back to the Middle East. The Jordan Rift Valley is part of this greater rift valley running all the way through this area I just defined. The Jordan Rift Valley specifically spans from the Jordan River and Dead Sea areas there in the current states of Jordan and Israel-Palestine. It's actually one of the dividing lines is this actually Rift Valley. And where this these plates are pulling apart ever so slowly in geologic time, it's causing a huge trench okay, the Red Sea itself is a trench, those lakes I talked at much higher elevation are a trench that's being pulled apart or created by the pulling apart of the African plate. But in Jordan, in the Jordan Rift Valley, you have the Dead Sea as part of the same geologic formation and the Dead Sea is actually take note here, the lowest point of land on Planet Earth not counting the oceans, but looking at all the world's land if you want to get as low as you can go without getting underwater, you go to the Dead Sea region between Jordan and Palestine and Israel. The coast of the Dead Sea is at 427 meters, that's 1,400 feet below sea level. Whoa! So that same rift where the land's pulling apart starts up there in Jordan Dead Sea, actually skirts around the Sinai Peninsula which belongs to Egypt now helped create the Gulf of Aqaba goes all the way through the Red Sea and then cuts into Africa through Somalia, Ethiopia, and all the way down Eastern Africa. And as that Arabian plate I should say therefore, as that Arabian plate moves northward, the African plate starts to separate east to west the Red Sea itself is getting bigger by just a few millimeters, the Red Sea gets bigger every year. Which means there's more and more water between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. More and more water? Hang on. We aren't supposed to be talking about water. More water in the Middle East? Let's get to water. Let's get liquid now and talk about water in the Middle East or the lack thereof and how that has affected things across this great region.