Hawizeh Marshes in southern Iraq , coming back to life after rain

May 4, 2026 8:05 PM

MedicalScience

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18582

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416

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Don’t. Follow. The lights.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

To extrapolate from the position of those shoes, I think his feet are on backwards.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

That looks so fucking peaceful. I want to ride a canoe through some peaceful glades.

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Gorgeous.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

I love that for them.

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Saddam hated these people. He damned up the marshes so they would drain so these people would have no place to live. This wasn't here in 2004, when I was in iraq. It's nice to see it now.

2 months ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 0

The Everglades of Iraq. Do they have Alligators too?

2 months ago | Likes 27 Dislikes 0

Mugger Crocodiles

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

Not natively.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Just Iraqi Florida man

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

No, but there are Florida men deployed there.

2 months ago | Likes 22 Dislikes 0

Allah gators probably

2 months ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 0

lol it clicked like 3 posts later I had to come back to upvote

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

❤️

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Those are some serious dessication cracks on the bottom. That water must not have been there for long at all

2 months ago | Likes 144 Dislikes 0

Big enough to not just turn your ankle, but break it. Been ages since rainfall, I'd bet.

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

The size of the cracks is more related to the clay type and content of the soil than dry time. In big clay deposits here dessication cracks open and close on a yearly cycle

2 months ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

Neat, TIL.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

If memory serves, Saddam Hussain drained the delta in order to drive these peopl out of their lands

2 months ago | Likes 47 Dislikes 3

I mean that in a few days the soil will absorb the water and the dessication cracks will close. Dessication cracks in the desert aren't unusual, even here. It isnt related to how they dried out.

2 months ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

It is tho. That is delta sediment. Meaning it has the smallest aggregate particle profile of soil you can imagine. So every crack you see here represents roughly the space occupied previously by water. The depth and width of the cracks and the particulate nature of silt means the water retreated and wasn't replenished for a very very long time. If it had happened quickly, the loose nature of the silt and the organic compounds present would have led to a more dusty sandlike quality.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

As a geologist, you are ignoring the clay content. Clays are very fine and bind soils together. And expansive clays are what cause the dessication cracking, not water leaving the interstitial pore spaces. The clays shrink when they dry out. And when water soaks back into them, they swell up again, closing the cracks. And I often work on dry lake beds here here in NV desert, I don't have to imagine what the soils are like.

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

its seeming pretty plausible that Saudi Arabias weather manipulation totally fucked every other country in the region

2 months ago | Likes 17 Dislikes 4

I don't see any evidence of the Saudi's doing it, but the UAE does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

they have been doing it in bits and pieces since at least 2006, with significant operations in 2022. Stategically I had not considered it as plausibly weaponized, and just a pretty good idea, like if you knew the rain was gonna fall in the ocean and had the option to make it fall on land, desert to be exact hell yeah thats crazy powerful. However, if you can do all that AND make your "enemy" not get rain at all, damn.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

First time hearing this, do you mean the theories of weather manipulation purported to be available to the United States? I'd thought that it was all far out, improbably conspiracy stuff.

2 months ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 1

Oh its actually pretty significant operations down there, its totally real tech. The reason the idea of it possibly being even more strategic than previously presumed is that Iran has had like a multi-decades long drought, and like a super bad one for 5 years, and like immediately after bombing the setups Iran got a huge amount of rain. It seems unlikely to me that so far a reaching effect can be achieved based on what we know but it also makes sense it could be hidden as a strategic weapon.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

Stay on your meds.

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

Absolutely not.

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

you must be more specific.

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0