![About 10 thousand years ago, North Africa's Sahara Desert was a wide, green landscape. (photo credit: apdesign)](https://sotp.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/shutterstock_93404287-300x200.jpg)
North Africa once was quite green,
From ancient lakes, clues we can glean:
Earth’s orbit has changed,
And rains rearranged …
Creating a vast, desert scene.
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Further reading:
End of the African Humid Period, News & Views by Peter deMenocal (2015) Nature Geoscience
This is one in a series of poems written by Katherine Allen, a researcher in geochemistry and paleoclimate at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University.