When was the Sahara desert covered by Ice?

          Sahara is the world’s largest desert covering an area of 9 million sq km. in northern Africa. It extends from the coast of Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red sea and Iraq. It includes parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia. One third of the desert is covered by sand dunes and the rest consists of rocky uplands and stony plains. Crude oil and natural gas have been discovered beneath the Sahara and now being extracted. But there was a time when this great desert was covered by ice. Do you know when?

          The first clue of ice was discovered when geologists found evidence of glaciations in the bedrock of the Algerian desert. The approximate time of the ice covering was calculated to be about 450 million years ago. The location of the desert at that time, as research studies have found out was near the South Pole. The size, shape and position of the continents or landmasses of the earth have been constantly changing over the years. This happens due to the movement of plates in the earth’s crust. When these giant plates move they carry the continents along with them. As per the available evidences, 200 million years ago there was a supercontinent called Pangaea. It was formed when separate continental plates drifted together but later Pangaea also broke apart. But geologists are not sure about the continental locations before the formation of Pangaea. But rock studies provide some clue to the then location of Sahara. They suggest that Sahara was situated near the South Pole which eventually leads us to believe that it was covered by ice during that period of history. This period, according to geological classifications, is called the Ordovician period when North Africa was at South Pole ice-cap and the equator ran diagonally across today’s North America.