The Anti-Atlas, also known as Lesser Atlas or Little Atlas, is a mountain range in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, a part of the

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. They separate the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range, which stretches around through M ...

in the northwest of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. The Anti-Atlas extends from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

in the southwest toward the northeast, to the heights of

Ouarzazate Ouarzazate (; , ), nicknamed ''the door of the desert'', is a city and capital of Ouarzazate Province in the region of Drâa-Tafilalet, south-central Morocco. Ouarzazate is a primary tourist destination in Morocco during the holidays, as well as ...

and further east to the city of

Tafilalt Tafilalt or Tafilet (), historically Sijilmasa, is a region of Morocco, centered on its largest oasis. Etymology There are many speculations regarding the origin of the word "Tafilalt", however it is known that Tafilalt is a Berber word meaning ...

, altogether a distance of approximately 500 km. The range borders on the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

to the south."Anti-Atlas" (or Jebel Saghru), ''The Encyclopædia Britannica'', 1910. In some contexts, the Anti-Atlas is considered separate from the Atlas Mountains system, as the prefix "anti" (i.e. opposite) implies.

Geography

The summits of the Anti-Atlas reach average heights of , with a few peaks reaching higher. To the north lies a plateau at 1700–1800 m in height. To the south lie the Sahara highlands at approximately 700 m. On the heights of

, the

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

is cut through by the Draa valley, opening towards the south. The range is strongly fissured, particularly in a southerly direction. The Anti-Atlas area is a traditionally

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

cave paintings In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. These paintings were often created by ''Hom ...

in certain areas of the range.

Subranges

The eastern prolongation of the Anti-Atlas is the Jbel Saghro range. The Jbel Sirwa is its northern prolongation, connecting with a section of the High Atlas range. The summit of Jbel Sirwa, of volcanic origin, reaches 3304 m. The Jbel Bani is a much lower range running along the southern side of the Anti Atlas. Siroua Amzdour

Origins

The basement rock of Africa (the African Plate) was formed in the

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

, and is much older than the Atlas mountains. The Anti-Atlas range developed even later. A fraction of the

Avalonia Avalonia was a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. Crustal fragments of this former microcontinent are terranes in parts of the eastern coast of North America: Atlantic Canada, and parts of the East Coast of the United States, East Coast of the ...

microcontinent, the Anti-Atlas range formed in the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

( 300 million years ago), as a result of continental collisions. North America, Europe and Africa were connected as part of two former continents,

Euramerica Laurasia () was the more northern of two large landmasses that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from around ( Mya), the other being Gondwana. It separated from Gondwana (beginning in the late Triassic period) during the breakup of Pa ...

and

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

, which ground against one another to create the former

Central Pangean Mountains The Central Pangean Mountains were an extensive northeast–southwest trending mountain range in the central portion of the supercontinent Pangaea during the Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic periods. They were formed as a result of collision be ...

. Evidence shows that the Anti-Atlas Mountains were originally formed as part of the Alleghenian orogeny that also formed the

Appalachians The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

, formed when

(including Africa) and

(America) collided. There are indications they were once a chain of mountains far higher than the

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...

s are today. Valley of Ammeln

More recently, in the

Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

and

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

Periods (66 million to ~1.8 million years ago), the remaining mountain chains that today comprise the Atlas were uplifted as the land masses of Europe and Africa collided at the southern end of the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

. Erosion continued to reduce the Anti-Atlas range so that it is today less massive than the High Atlas range to the north.

Climate

In the Anti-Atlas, the precipitation annually is typically below 200 mm, while the climatic conditions on the north and west slopes are locally more wet and agriculturally favorable. Climatically, the mountains are separated from the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

's influence by the High Atlas to its north, and therefore they belong to the Saharan climate zone. The driest area is the Jbel Saghro.

Flora

In the least dry areas to the west and the north, much of the land is covered with

thyme Thyme () is a culinary herb consisting of the dried aerial parts of some members of the genus ''Thymus (plant), Thymus'' of flowering plants in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are native to Eurasia and north Africa. Thymes have culinary, medici ...

rosemary ''Salvia rosmarinus'' (), commonly known as rosemary, is a shrub with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers. It is a member of the sage family, Lamiaceae. The species is native to the Mediterranean r ...

and other drought tolerant plants, such as

argan ''Sideroxylon spinosum'', known as argan (), synonym ''Argania spinosa'', is a species of flowering plant. It is a tree endemic to the calcareous semi-desert Sous valley of southwestern Morocco and to the region of Tindouf in southwestern Algeri ...

. The quilt-like cover is endangered by

overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature ...

, and in the south little but thorn shrubs remain. The transition to the desert is gradual towards the south. The Moroccan citron is cultivated there, and used as

Etrog Etrog (, plural: ; Ashkenazi Hebrew: , plural: ) is the yellow citron (''Citrus medica'') used by Jews during the weeklong holiday of Sukkot as one of the four species. Together with the ''lulav'', ''hadass'', and ''Aravah (Sukkot), aravah'', th ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

rituals.

Human geography

The Anti-Atlas area is a traditionally

region, inhabited by the Chleuh group. It is sparsely inhabited and there are no large cities in the area. The main town is Tafraoute, which has been described as "Morocco's Berber heartland." Often the distances between one village and another are great, without any human presence in between. There are

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

in certain areas of the range. The landscape of the Anti-Atlas is marked by picturesque

kasbah A kasbah (, also ; , , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasbah, qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term in Spanish (), which is derived from the same ...

(small castles) in many places in the region. During former times, the kasbah was important as a place of shelter and as a supply depot for kinsmen. Close to these settlements,

terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...

d fields with

dry-stone Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. A certain amount of binding is obtained through the use of carefully ...

retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...

s cover the landscape. However, increasingly houses are vacated and fields are left uncultivated. With the continued migration from the land, the irrigation systems necessary for agriculture are also decaying.

Panoramic view

Notes

References

* "Anti-Atlas" (or Jebel Saghru), ''The Encyclopædia Britannica'', 1910.

External links

* {{Authority control Mountain ranges of the Atlas Mountains Mountain ranges of Morocco