LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Middle East: North Africa
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Several major aquifers provide water to large portions of the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea.[22] Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia and Biyadh which contain amounts of both fresh water and saline water.[22] The Nubian aquifer system underlies large areas of North Africa.[22] The Great Manmade River project in Libya utilizes an extensive network of pipelines to transport water from the Nubian aquifer to its population centers. Recharge for these deep rock aquifers is on the order of thousands of years... the aquifers are essentially non-renewable resources.[23] Flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across the Middle East for agriculture.[24]
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MESA, with about 2600 members, is just the professional organization of the researchers at North American universities who mainly teach and write about the Middle East. You'll never see most of them on television and they aren't often consulted by politicians, but they are the ones who know Middle Eastern languages and spend a lifetime trying to understand the place.
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OSI and V-Day Karama hosted a reception and panel discussion featuring women activists from the Middle East and North Africa attending the 51st Session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. more
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Three major tectonic plates converge on the Middle East, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the tectonic plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea, and into Iran.[20] The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate (Turkey) at the East Anatolian Fault,[21] and the boundary between the Aegean and Anatolian plate in eastern Turkey is ... seismically active.[20]
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