The Ḥarrat al-Shām (),[S.A. Ghazanfar, Vegetation of the Arabian Peninsula (Springer Science & Business Media, 1998) p 272.]
The Harrat has been occupied by humans since at least the Late Epipalaeolithic ().
Geology
The
Harrat is part of a system of
formed by tectonic activity from the
Oligocene through to the
Quaternary.
This system, which geologists refer to as the 'Harrat Ash Shamah Volcanic Field', is the largest of several volcanic fields on the
Arabian Plate,
containing more than 800
and around 140 dikes.
Activity began during the
Miocene; an earlier eruptive stage at the southeastern end of the volcanic field, occurred during the late
Pleistocene and the
Holocene.
[H. Stewart Edgell, Arabian Deserts: Nature, Origin and Evolution (Springer Science & Business Media, 21Jul.,2006 ) p329-330] It is known to have erupted in historic times.
[Peter Vincent, Saudi Arabia: An Environmental Overview (CRC Press, 2008) p22.]
The Jabal al-Druze, al-Safa and Dirat al-Tulul volcanic fields, among others, form the northern and Syrian part of this system. The Saudi Arabian portion of the Harrat Ash Shamah volcanic field extends across a -long, roughly -wide northwest-southeast-trending area on the northeastern flanks of the Wadi Sirhan and reaches its high point at Jabal al-Amud. It is in the Tabuk Province of northwest Saudi Arabia.[U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989) pA152][Geological Survey Professional Paper, Volume 560, Part 1 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989)] and is one of a series of Quaternary volcanic fields paralleling the Red Sea coast.
History and economy
The
Harrat has traditionally been occupied by nomadic
Bedouin of the
Anizah confedaration.
It It is primarily associated with the
Ahl al-Jabal tribe, who graze sheep, goats, donkeys and camels there, but the
Rwala,
Zbaid,
Ghayyath,
Sardiyya and other tribes also use the area at times.
Although the region as a whole is too dry for rainfed agriculture, seasonal wetlands such as the Qa' Shubayqa are used for growing
after they are flooded by winter rains.
In the second half of the 20th century, many Bedouin settled in the village of Safawi, which grew up around a
pumping station on the Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline (H5).
Archaeological sites
Jordan
-
Jawa, Jordan, Early Bronze Age proto-urban settlement
-
Qasr al-Azraq and Qasr 'Ain es-Sil, ancient desert castles in the Azraq oasis
-
Qasr Burqu', ancient "desert castle"
-
Qasr Usaykhim, an ancient fort northeast of Azraq
-
Shubayqa 1, Natufian hunter-gatherer site with the oldest bread-making find in the world
See also
-
Syrian Desert
-
Hauran, a historical region partially overlapping with the Harrat al-Sham
-
List of volcanoes in Saudi Arabia
-
Sarawat Mountains
Notes
Further reading
-
Ilani, S., Harlavan, Y., Tarawneh, K., Rabba, I., Weinberger, R., Khalil, I., and Peltz, S. (2001), "New K-Ar ages of basalts from the Harrat Ash Shaam volcanic field in Jordan: Implications for the span and duration of the upper-mantle upwelling beneath the western Arabian plate" Geology 29(2):171–174
-
Kempe, S. and Al-Malabeh, A. (2005), " Newly discovered lava tunnels of the Al-Shaam plateau basalts", Geophysical Research Abstracts 7, European Geosciences Union
-
Salf, S.I. (1988), "Field and petrographic characteristics of Cenozoic basaltic rocks, Northwestern Saudi Arabia" Journal of African Earth Sciences, 7(5):805–809
-
Weinstein, Y., Navon, O., Altherr, R., and Stein, M., (2006) "The role of lithospheric mantle heterogeneity in the generation of Plio-Pleistocene alkali basalt suites from NW Harrat Ash Shaam (Israel)", Journal of Petrology 47(5):1017–1050
-
Al Kwatli, M.A., Gillot, P.Y., Zeyen, H., Hildenbrand, A., and Al Gharib, I., 2012. Volcano-tectonic evolution of the northern part of the Arabian plate in the light of new K-Ar ages and remote sensing: Harrat Ash Shaam volcanic province (Syria). Tectonophysics, 580, 192–207.
External links
