Mapping Out a New Nation

The Israeli team participating in geological surveys in Eritrea is not the only team of experts from abroad to be working these days in this East African country. But it is highly qualified and well equipped with Dead Sea Rift Valley experience.

Dr. Michael Beyth, director of the Earth Science Research Administration at Israel's Ministry of National Infrastructures (formerly the Ministry of Energy), has been heading a series of geological surveys in Eritrea during 1995-7. The research projects have been carried out by the Geological Survey of Israel, one of the Institutes which comprises the Earth Science Research Administration, under the auspices of MASHAV, in conjunction with the Eritrean Department of Mines and the Eritrean Geological Survey.

"As a geologist this work is a tremendous professional challenge," Beyth explains, "to be investigating partly uncharted territory, so to speak. The potential for gold and other minerals such as potash, which in projects carried out with our Eritrean colleagues we have studied, could be important factors for Eritrea to gain greater economic independence.

"We have also been examining hot, underground geothermal waters," he adds, "which could provide an energy source as well as groundwater in aquifers beneath the surface which could sustain agriculture. The Eritreans, who recently won their independence from Ethiopia, have a burning desire to be economically self-sufficient in every respect and these surveys are vital in laying the groundwork for this ambition."

"In addition this region is fascinating for a geologist to be investigating," he explains. "According to the plate tectonics theory, plates bordering the Red Sea are moving Eritrea as part of the Horn of Africa to the west further apart from the Arabian Peninsula to the east. This is the same process which millions of years ago tore Africa away from Latin America and opened up the Atlantic Ocean."

However, first and foremost, Beyth is pursuing a love for this part of Africa and its people which began back in 1968. Then he was a member of the Israeli Geological Survey Mission which spent several years in Ethiopia collaborating with local geologists in establishing the Geological Survey of Ethiopia. This project was also carried out within the framework of MASHAV's overseas activities.

"We carried out research projects," he recalls, "in such areas as geo-chemical exploration, geo-thermal exploration, hydro-geology and mineral exploration. I was personally assigned to the Tigre Province in Northern Ethiopia near the border with what is today Eritrea. We were working in the famous Danakil Depression which forms part of the Syrian African Rift Valley."

"Of course the Rift Valley also runs northwards through Israel," he continues, "so to some extent this was familiar territory for us, the Israelis. In cooperation with Ethiopian geologists we explored potential potash (a basic component of many fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) and salt deposits and hot, underground geo-thermal waters. Similar potash minerals (carnallite) are exploited from brines in the Dead Sea at the Dead Sea Works in the Dead Sea Rift Valley in Israel (which exports about 2.5 million tons per year of potash, earning revenues of $324 million). We also found groundwater and potential for gold and other valuable minerals."

Beyth recalls that so important was the work that he and his Israeli and Ethiopian colleagues carried out at that time that many professional papers were published in international geological periodicals as a result. He thumbs through a wad of such papers that he himself published - "Interpretation of the Stratigraphy of Northern Ethiopia According to the Model of the Plate Tectonics," and "Paleozoic - Mesiozoic Sedimentary Basin in Northern Ethiopia," to name but two.

But most importantly Beyth, the Israeli team and their Ethiopian counterparts published the first 1:250,000 scale geological map for the Geological Survey of Ethiopia of Northern Ethiopia.

"Geological maps are the infrastructure for all planning and development," he explains. "Not only do they provide a picture of a country's chemical composition including mineral, energy and water reserves, but they are also the basis for land-use maps. It is impossible to plan urban development, for example, without knowing what is on and beneath the surface."

So if the basis for transforming a developing country into a more developed country is functioning infrastructures, those infrastructures cannot be built without first conducting a geological survey of the type that MASHAV undertook together with Ethiopian geologists.

The connections made by Michael Beyth and his colleagues in Ethiopia were so good that ongoing contacts were maintained long after 1972 when the team from the Geological Survey of Israel left Africa. And after Eritrea gained its independence in May 1993, it occurred to Beyth and MASHAV that the newly independent state would be interested in cooperation in conducting geological surveys to take stock of its mineral reserves, water potential and land-use maps.

Most significantly Michael Beyth was an old friend of Alem Kibreab who now serves as the Director General of Eritrea's Department of Mines. "We worked together in northern Ethiopia," recollects Beyth. "Alem was fresh out of college then and the surveys we did together were one of his first times he had been out in the field. I have very fond memories of those times. Of course I was young and fit too and we would spend weeks at a time working out in the hills. We would hike for days on end and sleep rough out in the wild."

Times have changed, Michael Beyth observes, in terms of the type of equipment available to geologists, although he and Alem Kibreab, who recently visited Israel, still sleep out in the wild when they work on geological surveys.

"Of course back in the late sixties and early seventies," he recalls, "we did not have computers to store the vast amount of data that we amass. But more crucial for geologists is the analytical equipment that has been developed which is much more accurate in predicting the potential for minerals in rocks. Indeed one of the cooperation projects we are working on is the construction of a geo-chemical laboratory in Eritrea so that specimens can be analyzed in the fastest and most accurate manner."

The geological cooperation between Israel and Eritrea was facilitated by the then Israeli Ambassador to Eritrea Ariel Kerem and Haim Divon, the former Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia and now head of MASHAV and Deputy Director General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs who is a personal friend of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworke. Indeed Haim Divon and Michael Beyth were given a personal audience by President Afeworke, who stressed the importance of this cooperation project for his fledgling nation. The Eritrean authorities have shown keen interest to make rapid progress in this project. Moreover, Beyth was officially in Eritrea at the invitation of Ato Tesfay Gebreselaissie, Minister of Energy, Mines and Water Resources, Alem Kibreab, Director General of the Department of Mines, and Ato Tesfamichael, Director of the Geological Survey of Eritrea.

Covering an area of 125,000 square kilometres (48,000 square miles), Eritrea has a population of 3.5 million. The country can be divided into five major geological zones, explains Beyth: the coastal plains or Eastern Lowlands, the Danakil Alps rising to over 2,000 metres above sea level, the Danakil Depression, as much as 100 metres below sea level, the high plateau rising 3,000 metres above sea level, and the Western Lowlands up to 1,300 metres above sea level and containing major river valleys which are sources of the Nile.

Beyth made a preliminary visit to Eritrea in March 1994 and issued a proposal for the organization of earth science institutes in Eritrea which will help achieve fundamental national goals and overcome major economic and environmental problems. He suggested several bi-lateral (Israel-Eritrea) and tri-lateral projects (Israel-Eritrea and a third party from Western Europe or North America) that could help in solving these problems.

"The goal of the projects that we are proposing and implementing," stresses Beyth, "is to establish an organization which will create an efficient and competent infrastructure for future developments and investments, and to suggest projects that could be eligible for funding by international financial institutions."

Beyth observed that three rudimentary problems confronting Eritrea in the relevant fields were lack of funds generally, a lack of water sources and the salination of existing groundwater (underground aquifers) and the lack of basic information in earth science infrastructure.

After this preliminary visit Michael Beyth's initial evaluation, requested by Alem, suggested three projects which have since been undertaken: compilation of the information on the Culloli potash project; preliminary assessment of the Alid geothermal and gold potential and the REE (rare earth elements) potential of the Belhat-Shilici pegmatites; and exploring for groundwater in the Gahtelay Plains.

An initial report on the Culloli underground potash deposit has already been issued, based on compiled information. The potash deposits are found in the Danakil Salt Plains, close to the Red Sea coast 60 kilometres south of Mersa Fatma and on the border with Ethiopia. The area is 50 to 100 metres below sea level, is covered with gypsum and salt, and is extremely hot, especially during the summer.

Beyth's compilative preliminary report notes that the Culloli deposits in Eritrea have proven reserves of 66 million tons of potash and additional probable reserves of 32.3 million tons as well as another possible 62 million tons.

The assessment of the geothermal potential of the Alid Volcanic Range was conducted during a field trip in April 1994. Good potential for producing energy was in fact approved, explains Beyth, in this very arid area located some 30 kilometres south of the Gulf of Zula.

"While we knew in advance that there are boiling waters beneath the surface of this region," explains Beyth, "which can be used as an energy source for generating electricity, the principle question that we were trying to answer was whether there are sources of replenishment for these hot springs. If not, of course, then this is not a viable energy source."

Initial findings suggest that the water is replenishable, and Beyth observes that the Israeli company Ormat Turbines which specializes in generating electricity from geo-thermal sources could in the medium term exploit this energy potential.

Regarding the mineral potential of the Belhat and Ghedem Mountain Ranges, Michael Beyth made two visits to the region which is on the eastern boundary of the Eritrean escarpment about 80 kilometres inland from the Red Sea. Initial indications have been that this region may be a potential for gem stones and REE. The petrography, mineralogy and chemistry of six samples was investigated in the first study and in the second study 17 stream sediment samples and 21 rock samples were analyzed. Results indicated that the region has potential for silver.

Eritrea may also have major deposits of gold. Beyth carried out a preliminary study of the Alid Volcanic Range during May 1995 at the suggestion of Alem Kibreab.

"The results," observes Beyth, "were encouraging. True they are based on only five analyses so that much more investigation needs to be done, but the samples showed distinct concentrations of gold. Ultimately our job is to provide enough data that will persuade the world's gold exploration mining company's to explore Eritrea."

However, perhaps even more valuable than gold in this arid region of Africa is water. The investigation carried out previously of groundwater in the Gahtelay Plains and the areas south and west of Massawa, inland from the Red Sea, recommended greater use of large diameter wells and sub-surface dams as well as deep drilling rather than surface reservoiring because of the high evaporation rate. The source of the shallow and deep thermal-mineral waters was identified as rainfall and escarpment floods, and preferred aquifers located were river beds, alluvial fans and fractured metamorphic rocks.

"Here too Eritrea resembles Israel," emphasizes Beyth, "in that we draw much of our water from groundwater aquifers. The real danger is from over-use which causes seawater to seep into the aquifers and make the water too saline. Therefore, more detailed studies must urgently be made of Eritrea's groundwater sources."

A vital aspect of all these studies is the detailed analysis that samples must undergo. At present all rock samples collected are sent back to Israel for testing by state-of-the-art equipment such as ICPAES, MS and electron microscopes or stable isotopic studies for the water samples. MASHAV together with Eritrea's Department of Mines and the Geological Survey of Israel are currently establishing such a geochemical laboratory in Asmara which will eliminate the cumbersome need to transport samples to Israel and the accompanying delay in receiving results.

As part of the geological cooperation between Israel and Eritrea, MASHAV held two on-the-spot courses in Eritrea on geophysical methods for exploring groundwater and salination of groundwater. The courses were conducted by Israeli experts Mark Goldman and Vladimir Shtibelman from the Geophysical Institute of Israel in 1994.

Another major project undertaken in Eritrea through MASHAV has been detailed aerial photography of both rural and urban areas which are a vital instrument in developing the country's infrastructures. The Israel based Ofek Aerial Photography and Mapping Company has taken 1:10,000 colour photographs of the country's major cities, and 1:20,000 black and white photographs of the Eastern Lowlands.

"The Eastern Lowlands region along the Red Sea coast's 30,000 km2," explains Beyth, "is a priority area. This is one of Eritrea's most under-developed regions stretching between the two principle port cities of Assab and Massawa, and yet it has great potential for tourism and agriculture and there are deposits of potash, limestone for the cement industry and a geothermal potential for producing energy."

However, Beyth reiterates the point that without a comprehensive geological survey no major development of infrastructures can be undertaken. He is therefore eager to conduct such a survey at the earliest possible time.

And perhaps most of all, aside from the professional challenge that such a project would pose and the opportunities it would offer, Michael Beyth would like to carry out such a survey because it would require him to spend an extended amount of time in Eritrea, a country whose people and culture he has come to dearly love.