Editing Azawad (section)

==Geography==
[[File:Une guelta, près d'Oubankort dans l'Adrar des Ifoghas.jpg|thumb|A [[guelta]] in [[Adrar des Ifoghas]]]]
The local climate is [[desert]] or [[Semi-arid climate|semi-desert]]. [[Reuters]] wrote of the terrain: "Much of the land is the Sahara desert at its most inhospitable: rock, sand dunes and dust scored by shifting tracks."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/factbox-azawad-self-proclaimed-tuareg-state/|title=FACTBOX-'Azawad': self-proclaimed Tuareg state|date=6 April 2012|access-date=6 April 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120914024935/http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/factbox-azawad-self-proclaimed-tuareg-state/|archive-date=14 September 2012}}</ref> Some definitions of Azawad also include parts of northern [[Niger]] and southern [[Algeria]], adjacent areas to the south and the north<ref name="AlJaz08">{{cite web|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/unrestsahara/2008/07/20087118508319575.html|title=Who are the Tuareg?|date=14 July 2008|publisher=Al Jazeera|access-date=3 April 2012}}</ref> though in its declaration of independence, the MNLA did not advance territorial claims on those areas.<ref name=DOI/>

Traditionally, Azawad has referred to the [[sandplain]]s north of Timbuktu. In geological terms, it is a mosaic of [[fluvial|river]], [[swamp]], lake, and [[Aeolian deposit|wind-borne]] [[Deposition (geology)|deposits]], while [[aeolian processes]] have proven the most imprinting.<ref>McIntosh, 2008, p. 33</ref>

About 6500 BC, Azawad was a 90,000-square kilometres [[marsh]]y and [[lacustrine plain|lake basin]]. The area of today's Timbuktu was probably permanently flooded. In the deeper parts of Azawad, there were large lakes, partly recharged by rainfall, partly by exposed [[groundwater]]. Seasonal lakes and creeks were fed by overflow of the [[Niger River]].<ref>McIntosh, 2008, p. 34</ref> The annual Niger flood was diffused throughout the Azawad by a network of [[palaeochannel]]s spread out over an area of 180 by 130 kilometres. The most important of these paleochannels is the Wadi el-Ahmar, which is 1 200 metres wide at its southern end, at the Niger bend, and winds 70 to 100 kilometres northward. These long interdunal indentations that are framed by [[Pleistocene]] [[Seif dune|longitudinal dunes]], characterise the present landscape.<ref>McIntosh, 2008, p. 35</ref>