Port Said and Ismailia as Desert Marvels: Delusion and Frustration on the Isthmus of Suez, 1859-1869

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 622-647
Author(s):  
Lucia Carminati
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Coastal City ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Northern Shore ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Port Said ◽  
Travel Accounts

In April 1859, one hundred and fifty laborers gathered on Egypt’s northern shore. When pickaxes first hit the land to be parted from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, not only was the Suez Canal initiated, but the coastal city of Port Said was also born. Two more cities, Ismailia (1862) and Port Tewfik (1867), were later founded along the waterway. This article analyzes the ways in which the environment of the isthmus of Suez changed upon the digging of the canal as well as the ideas that germinated around such changes. By relying on published memoirs, travel accounts, and archival documents, I explore how Western contemporaries viewed the isthmus desert and constructed narratives around the urbanization and the peopling of the area. I argue that they sanctioned the myth that Western initiative alone could transform the isthmus sands into flower gardens, thus disregarding realities on the ground.

Radiocarbon dating of individual foram tests show that alleged Lessepsian species are of Holocene age

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo G. Albano ◽  
Anna Sabbatini ◽  
Jonathan Lattanzio ◽  
Jan Steger ◽  
Sönke Szidat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Tropical Species ◽  
Indigenous Species ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Sediment Depth ◽  
The Mediterranean

<p>The Lessepsian invasion – the largest marine biological invasion – followed the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 (81 years BP). Shortly afterwards, tropical species also distributed in the Red Sea appeared on Mediterranean shores: it was the dawn of what would become the invasion of several hundred tropical species. The time of the Suez Canal opening coincided with an acceleration in natural history exploration and description, but the eastern sectors of the Mediterranean Sea lagged behind and were thoroughly explored only in the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. Many parts are still insufficiently studied today. Baseline information on pre-Lessepsian ecosystem states is thus scarce. This knowledge gap has rarely been considered by invasion scientists: every new finding of species belonging to tropical clades has been assumed to be a Lessepsian invader.</p><p>We here question this assumption by radiocarbon dating seven individual tests of miliolids – imperforated calcareous foraminifera – belonging to five alleged non-indigenous species. Tests were found in two sediment cores collected at 30 and 40 m depth off Ashqelon, on the Mediterranean Israeli shelf. We dated one <em>Cribromiliolinella milletti </em>(core at 40 m, 20 cm sediment depth), three <em>Nodophthalmidium antillarum </em>(core at 40 m, 35 cm sediment depth), one <em>Miliolinella </em>cf. <em>fichteliana </em>(core at 30 m, 110 cm sediment depth), one <em>Articulina alticostata </em>(core at 40 m, 35 cm sediment depth) and one <em>Spiroloculina antillarum </em>(core at 30 m, 110 cm sediment depth). All foraminiferal tests proved to be of Holocene age, with a median calibrated age spanning between 749 and 8285 years BP. Only one test of <em>N. antillarum</em> showed a 2-sigma error overlapping the time of the opening of the Suez Canal, but with a median age of 1123 years BP. Additionally, a thorough literature search resulted in a further record of <em>S. antillarum</em> in a core interval dated 1820–2064 years BP in Turkey.</p><p>Therefore, these foraminiferal species are not introduced, but native species. They are all circumtropical or Indo-Pacific and in the Mediterranean distributed mostly in the eastern sectors (only <em>S. antillarum</em> occurs also in the Adriatic Sea). Two hypotheses can explain our results: these species are Tethyan relicts that survived the Messinian salinity crisis (5.97–5.33 Ma) and the glacial periods of the Pleistocene in the Eastern Mediterranean, which may have never desiccated completely during the Messinian crisis and which may have worked as a warm-water refugium in the Pleistocene; or they entered the Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea more recently but before the opening of the Suez Canal, for example during the Last Interglacial (MIS5e) high-stand (125,000 years BP) when the flooded Isthmus of Suez enabled exchanges between the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific fauna. The recognition that some alleged Lessepsian invaders are in fact native species influences our understanding of the invasion process, its rates and environmental correlates.</p>

scholarly journals Author the red-med railway project a serious competitor to the suez canal for cargo containers?

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salem Y. Lakhal ◽  
Souad H’Mida
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Green Light ◽  
Mediterranean Coast ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Market Position ◽  
Railway Line ◽  
Project Plan ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Cargo Containers

Israel and China have finalized a project plan initiated in 2012. This project received the green light from Israeli cabinet in March 2014. With this venture, China will build a cargo railway line connecting the port of Eilat in the Red Sea to the ports of Ashdod and Haifa on the Mediterranean coast in Israel. This project will be a shipping alternative to the Suez Canal. This statement is the corner stone of this paper and considered an hypothesis to be verified within this paper. The methodology used is based on the concept of “market position.” The main conclusion, theoretically, the Red-Med railway could be an alternative to the Suez Canal for in the 4,000 TFE Vessels containers transportation as far as costs are concerned. However, other concerns, such as the security in the Suez Canal and the risk of its shutdown, must be considered too.

Tintinnids (Ciliophora: Choreotrichia) of the Suez Canal and their transmigration process between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-462
Author(s):  
Hamed A. El-Serehy ◽  
Fahad A. Al-Misned ◽  
Nasser S. Abdel-Rahman ◽  
Khaled A. Al-Rasheid
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
The Mediterranean

An updated Checklist of the Mediterranean fishes of Israel, with illustrations of recently recorded species and delineation of Lessepsian migrants

Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4956 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-108
Author(s):  
DANIEL GOLANI
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Ballast Water ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Water Influx ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Lessepsian Migrants

This checklist of the Mediterranean fishes of Israel enumerates 469 species which is an addition of 62 species since the previous checklist of 2005. This new checklist includes 58 Condrichthys and 411 Osteicthys species. Most newly-recorded species are of Red Sea origin (Lessepsian migrants)—38 species, 25 species are from previously poorly investigated habitats, mainly deep water, while two species reached the Mediterranean most likely by ballast water and two are aquaculture escapees.                The dramatic increase in the number of Lessepsian migrants (an average of 2.5 species per year) is most likely due to the increased water influx between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, following the recent opening of the new parallel, 72 km, “new canal” and the enlargement of other parts of the Suez Canal. 

Present Development Phases of the Suez Canal Project

1982 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-465
Author(s):  
Nabil Hilaly
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Nile Delta ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Development Phases ◽  
The Mediterranean

It is recorded that Egypt was the first country to dig a canal to promote world trade; the first canal was dug in the reign of Pharaoh Senusret III (1887–1849 B.C.), to link the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea through the Nile delta. This canal, often abandoned due to silting, was reopened for navigation by later Pharaohs and finally by Amro Ibn El Ass in A.D. 640 after which it remained open for 150 years.

scholarly journals Invasion of an invader: a case study from the Suez Channel

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasser Geneid ◽  
Amgad El Shaffai
Keyword(s):  
Invasive Species ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Water Discharge ◽  
Algal Species ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Fishing Ground ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
Seagrass Meadows ◽  
The Mediterranean

After the year 1869, a major change in the Mediterranean marine ecosystem occurred. A pathway called Suez Canal was created allowing the passage of alien invasive species from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, which is currently harboring over 900 introduced marine species. About 54% of these established non-native species reached through the Suez Canal. Whilst most of the studies dealing with marine invasive species focused on the Mediterranean, very few were done in the Suez Canal itself. The goal of this study is to review the distribution and current status of two invasive marine plants in the Suez Canal, specifically the Bitter Lakes area. This area was selected because of its special environmental conditions and its importance as a major fishing ground in the entire canal. Visual observations of the marine vegetation in the study sites were carried out starting year 2001. Halophila stipulacea , a tropical seagrass distributed along the coasts of the western Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, has migrated and is widely found around the Mediterranean. It was recorded in the Suez Canal by the Cambridge Expedition in 1924 and is known to occur in the shallow sandy-muddy bottom areas along its western coast. Since 2000, different studies along the Bitter Lakes have shown total disappearance of seagrass meadows caused by another invader that have replaced the seagrass plants and reached a percentage cover of nearly 100% in some of the studied sites. A new intruder was the green seaweed Caulerpa prolifera, a Mediterranean algal species that was recorded in the Gulf of Suez in 1984, among few species migrated from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. It has rapidly colonized different locations in the Suez Canal replacing H. stipulacea meadows. However, in 2004, a dramatic change took place in the study area where C. prolifera began diminishing allowing the previously found H. stipulacea to inhabit the seafloor. While salinity reduction from hypersaline conditions – due to growing of coastal communities along the Bitter Lakes with more fresh water discharge – may cause the expansion of C. prolifera in the study area, the reasons why it declined and disappeared are still unclear.

scholarly journals Possible implications of sea level changes for species migration through the Suez Canal

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eli Biton
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
Species Migration ◽  
Reverse Migration ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The 19Th Century

AbstractThe Mediterranean and Red Sea, which were connected via the Suez Canal during the 19th century after eons of separation, host two distinctive ecosystems. Species invasion through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea vastly influences the ecology of the Mediterranean, but the level of reverse migration is assumed to be negligible. We present the first reconstructed flow transport record through the canal during the period 1923–2016. According to this reconstruction, the flow intensity and direction through the canal are strongly influenced by seasonal and long-term sea-level changes, which could also play a role in the characteristics of species migration through it. Our record not only supports previous observations of the unidirectional invasion until the 1980s and the accelerated species migration rates to the Mediterranean ever since, but also suggest that southward migration could have become possible since the early 1980s. The southward flow was primarily enhanced by Indian Ocean cooling and the Eastern Mediterranean Transition in deep water formation during the period 1980–2000. It was then gradually reduced by accelerated sea-level rise in the northern Indian Ocean.

scholarly journals Non-methane hydrocarbon (C<sub>2</sub>–C<sub>8</sub>) sources and sinks around the Arabian Peninsula

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 7209-7232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efstratios Bourtsoukidis ◽  
Lisa Ernle ◽  
John N. Crowley ◽  
Jos Lelieveld ◽  
Jean-Daniel Paris ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Arabian Gulf ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Associated Gas ◽  
Mixing Ratios ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. Atmospheric non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) have been extensively studied around the globe due to their importance to atmospheric chemistry and their utility in emission source and chemical sink identification. This study reports on shipborne NMHC measurements made around the Arabian Peninsula during the AQABA (Air Quality and climate change in the Arabian BAsin) ship campaign. The ship traversed the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the northern Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Gulf, before returning by the same route. The Middle East is one of the largest producers of oil and gas (O&amp;G), yet it is among the least studied. Atmospheric mixing ratios of C2–C8 hydrocarbons ranged from a few ppt in unpolluted regions (Arabian Sea) to several ppb over the Suez Canal and Arabian Gulf (also known as the Persian Gulf), where a maximum of 166.5 ppb of alkanes was detected. The ratio between i-pentane and n-pentane was found to be 0.93±0.03 ppb ppb−1 over the Arabian Gulf, which is indicative of widespread O&amp;G activities, while it was 1.71±0.06 ppb ppb−1 in the Suez Canal, which is a characteristic signature of ship emissions. We provide evidence that international shipping contributes to ambient C3–C8 hydrocarbon concentrations but not to ethane, which was not detected in marine traffic exhausts. NMHC relationships with propane differentiated between alkane-rich associated gas and methane-rich non-associated gas through a characteristic enrichment of ethane over propane atmospheric mixing ratios. Utilizing the variability–lifetime relationship, we show that atmospheric chemistry governs the variability of the alkanes only weakly in the source-dominated areas of the Arabian Gulf (bAG=0.16) and along the northern part of the Red Sea (bRSN=0.22), but stronger dependencies are found in unpolluted regions such as the Gulf of Aden (bGA=0.58) and the Mediterranean Sea (bMS=0.48). NMHC oxidative pair analysis indicated that OH chemistry dominates the oxidation of hydrocarbons in the region, but along the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf the NMHC ratios occasionally provided evidence of chlorine radical chemistry. These results demonstrate the utility of NMHCs as source/sink identification tracers and provide an overview of NMHCs around the Arabian Peninsula.

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