Moghra oasis
The Moghra Oasis is an uninhabited oasis in the northeastern part of the Qattara Depression in the Western Desert of Egypt. It has a 4 km2 (1.5 sq mi) lake containing brackish water, salt marshes and a swamp with reeds.
The Qattara Depression is about 133 metres (436 ft) below sea level and is shaped like a teardrop, with Moghra Oasis in its northeastern corner. The floor of the Depression consists of salt marshes and dry lake beds that flood occasionally and there are also large areas of windblown sand. Moghra Oasis consists of a 4 km2 (1.5 sq mi) lake containing brackish water some 38 metres (125 ft) below sea level. Adjoining it are salt marshes and some Phragmites swamps. To the south and west there are sand dunes near the lake and extensive sheets of sand beyond. Although the oasis is uninhabited, nomadic Bedouin people visit it during the dry season in search of water for their livestock.
The water rises to the surface from an aquifer in the Nubian sandstone, but its precise source is unclear as the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is at great depths in this area. Just to the north of the oasis is a cliff which gives its name to the Moghra Formation, a thick layer of clastic sedimentary rocks with some minor carbonate interbeds. This formation contains fossils of vertebrates and plants; large mammals found here include Megistotherium, hyaenodonts and Hyaenaelurus. These fluvial deposits are likely to have come from a river system which opened into the Nile Delta at the Moghra Oasis.
To the south of the lake, the saltmarsh gradually merges into saline flats largely devoid of vegetation. There are three main species in this plant community, each dominating its own concentric zone; Zygophyllum album, Nitraria retusa and Tamarix nilotica. The most important variables affecting the distribution and structure of the communities are the moisture content of the soil and the salinity.
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