In Namibia, These Trees Have Stood Dead for 600 Years

The Namib is the oldest desert on Earth, and its sand travelled a long way to get here: rivers, the ocean current and the wind carried it thousands of kilometres out of the interior of southern Africa, and it is still moving. Most dune fields form from rock eroding where it stands. 1

Deadvlei is a white clay pan in Namibia's Namib-Naukluft Park, in a valley between the dunes beside the Sossusvlei salt pan. The Tsauchab river used to flood it, and camel thorn trees grew on the water. Then the climate changed, the dunes moved across and cut the river off, and the trees died. They are believed to have died 600 to 700 years ago, which puts their deaths around 1340 to 1430. The air there is so dry that the wood has lasted all this time, and the sun has scorched the trunks black. 23

Visual credits: the dune footage is by Deon van Rooyen on Pexels 4; the stills of the Sossusvlei pan and the dead trees came from the Pexels library 5678, and so did the cover photograph 9.