Seas beneath the Sands Reading Answers for IELTS

The IELTS Academic Reading section is broken up into three sections, each of which has a lengthy passage with 12-14 questions. As the difficulty level increases from Passage 1 to Passage 3, you need to be prepared by practising passages like Seas beneath the Sands Reading Answers.

The Academic passage, Seas beneath the Sands Reading Answers, is a reading passage that appeared in an IELTS Test. Ideally, you should not spend more than 20 minutes on a passage. Let’s see how easy this passage is for you and if you’re able to make it in 20 minutes. If not, try more IELTS reading practice tests from IELTSMaterial.com.

The passage, Seas beneath the Sands Reading Answers, is an IELTS Academic reading passage that consists of 12 questions.

The question types found in it are:

• Table Completion (Q.1-4)
• Matching Information (Q. 5-12)

Reading Passage

Seas beneath the Sands

A Look at a map of North Africa from Egypt to Algeria. Almost everything outside the Nile Valley and south of the coastal plain appears to be lifeless sand and gravel deserts. But – peer deeper, under the sand, and you will find water. Under the Sahara lie three major aquifers, strata of saturated sandstones and limestones that hold water in their pores like a wet sponge. The easternmost of these, extending over two million square kilometres, contains 375,000 cubic kilometres of water—the equivalent of 3,750 years of Nile river flow. It is called the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, and lately it has come to the attention of practitioners of a subspeciality of nuclear science known as isotope hydrology.

B Isotope hydrology, which studies the atoms of the two elements making up groundwater— oxygen and hydrogen—and the trace elements in it, like carbon and nitrogen, is able to determine when, give or take a couple of thousand years, today’s groundwater fell to earth as rain. In the case of the Nubian Aquifer, some water in the system is thought to be one million years old, but most of it fell between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago. Since then, as the region has slowly turned to desert, there has been little addition of water to the aquifer. What lies beneath the ground is called fossil water, and it will likely never be recharged.

C Because the Nubian Aquifer is shared among four nations, and because Libya and Egypt are now going forward with big water-pumping projects that tap the Nubian Aquifer, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), co-recipient of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, is trying to bring the countries together in a joint effort to plan for a rational shared use of the water.

D The stakes are certainly high. Egypt eventually hopes to use almost half a billion cubic metres of groundwater annually—more than the volume of Lake Erie. Libya is already pumping water from the Kufra Oasis, in its southeast corner, through a four metre diameter pipeline to its thirsty coastal cities. When fully operational, that project will pump some 3.6 million cubic metres per day. Still, at current extraction rates, the aquifer is not likely to be depleted for a thousand years.

E Dr Taher Muhammad Hassan of the EAEA (Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority) says “One thing that isotope studies have shown us is that there is surprisingly little aquifer recharge from the Nile. Nile water has a younger isotopic profile, and samples from wells dug as close as five kilometres from the river show no sign of the Nile fingerprint. In fact, some of that well water is dated at 26,000 years old.” Hassan is confident there is little likelihood of international conflict over aquifer sharing. “We know that the velocity of underground flow in most places is just two metres a day,” he says. “It’s like sucking a thick milkshake through a straw—it doesn’t happen fast, and eventually it stops completely.” Even Libya’s big extraction plans for Kufra will probably have only a minor effect on Egypt’s East Uweinat farming area, given the distance between the two. If Kufra’s water table drops 200 metres, the Egyptian side might see a drop of only 10 centimetres.

F At al-Agouza West in Egypt, a 10-story drilling rig, the same kind used to drill oil wells, has reached 800 metres and is now evacuating the drilling mud and widening the bore. It has taken 20 days to penetrate layers of shale and clay to reach the saturated sandstone—the basement of the Nubian formation is some 1,800 metres deep here—at a cost of about $400,000. Once the well is ready for testing, the ministry engineers check its static and dynamic levels with a sounder, a kind of fisherman’s bob at the end of a tape measure that rises and falls with the water table.

G Dr Khaled Abu Zeid, of the Egyptian non-profit Center for Environment and Development of the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), stresses the social context of water-resource development, and the need to keep in mind traditional water users as well as new users. Small farmers and Bedouin who rely on shallow wells should not be ignored in favour of the big development schemes. “They need water today,” he says, “and will still need it tomorrow. We must not let it run dry because deeper wells are more cost-effective. But neither should we have an absolutist conservationist approach, in which we try to keep fossil water in some kind of ‘museum’ for their benefit.”

H The director of the Groundwater Research Institute at the Nile Barrage, Ur Ahmed Khater, finds it ironic that in a desert region like the Middle East, petroleum geology is much better understood than subsurface hydrology. “But water is what makes our life possible here, and we must use it wisely,” he says. He cites the experience of President Nasser’s “New Valley” project in the 1960s, which proposed a massive resettlement of Nile Valley farmers to the western oases. It was a failure. “These isotope studies hold the promise of learning more about what is really our most precious asset—water, not oil,” he says. Nasser, he notes, got the New Valley project’s motto wrong.” He said, ‘When settlers come, then we will find water.’ He should have said, ‘When we find water, then settlers can come.”

Questions 1- 4

Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System

Questions 5-12

5 dating the age of the water

6 understanding underground water through studying isotopes

7 the process of water collection

8 review of the likelihood of conflict

9 the importance of water for North-Saharan countries

10 layers of porous rock holding water under the desert

11 attention to the needs of local people

12 cross-country project for the use of water

Seas beneath the Sands IELTS Reading Answers with Explanation

Read further for the explanations and location of the ‘Seas beneath the Sands’ IELTS Reading answer!

1 Answer: two million km2

Question type: Table Completion

Answer location: Paragraph A, line 4

Answer explanation: In the mentioned location, it is stated that “The easternmost of these, extending over two million square kilometres, contains 375,000 cubic kilometres of water—the equivalent of 3,750 years of Nile river flow. ”. In the given reference, it is clearly given that the extent of the easternmost part of the aquifer is two million square kilometres and it contains 375,000 cubic kilometres of water. Hence, the answer is ‘two million km2’.

2 Answer: water (fell)

Question type: Table Completion

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 2

Answer explanation: In the cited line, it is stated that “In the case of the Nubian Aquifer, some water in the system is thought to be one million years old, but most of it fell between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago.”. It can be concluded from the above-mentioned lines that although some of the water in the Nubian Aquifer is thought to have formed one million years ago, the majority (most) of it fell between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago. Hence, the answer is ‘water (fell)’.

3 Answer: 2/two metres (a)

Question type: Table Completion

Answer location: Paragraph E, line 3

Answer explanation: In the specified line, it is given that ““We know that the velocity of underground flow in most places is just two metres a day,” he says.”. In other words, the flow (velocity) of the underground water of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in Egypt is two metres per day. Hence, the answer is ‘2/two metres’.

4 Answer: basement

Question type: Table Completion

Answer location: Paragraph F, line 2

Answer explanation: In the sixth paragraph, it is stated that “…the basement of the Nubian formation is some 1,800 metres deep here…”. Here, it is clear that the depth of the basement of the Nubian formation is 1,800 metres deep at al-Agouza West in Egypt. Hence, the answer is ‘basement’.

5 Answer: B

Question type: Matching Information

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 1- line 2

Answer explanation: In the second paragraph, it is noted that “Isotope hydrology, which studies the atoms of the two elements making up groundwater— oxygen and hydrogen—and the trace elements in it, like carbon and nitrogen, is able to determine when, give or take a couple of thousand years, today’s groundwater fell to earth as rain. In the case of the Nubian Aquifer, some water in the system is thought to be one million years old, but most of it fell between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago.”. From the quoted lines of the passage, it is clear that the second paragraph contains information on how Isotope hydrology is used to find the approximate age of the water. Hence, the answer is B.

6 Answer: B

Question type: Matching Information

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 1

Answer explanation: In the cited location, it is stated that “Isotope hydrology, which studies the atoms of the two elements making up groundwater— oxygen and hydrogen—and the trace elements in it, like carbon and nitrogen, is able to determine when, give or take a couple of thousand years, today’s groundwater fell to earth as rain.”. Based on this statement, it can be commented that the second paragraph contains information on how isotope hydrology studies underground water by studying isotopes. Hence, the answer is B.

7 Answer: D

Question type: Matching Information

Answer location: Paragraph D, line 3

Answer explanation: In the indicated line, it is given that “Libya is already pumping water from the Kufra Oasis, in its southeast corner, through a four metre diameter pipeline to its thirsty coastal cities.”. It can be concluded from the quoted line from Paragraph D that the process of water collection is done through a four-metre diameter pipeline and then is distributed to the cities. Hence, the answer is D.

Tips for Answering the Question Types in Seas beneath the Sands IELTS Reading Answers

Since you have gone through the Seas beneath the Sands Reading Answers with location, let us check out some quick IELTS exam preparation tips to answer the types of questions in the Seas beneath the Sands Reading Answers.

Table Completion: 

The method for answering the IELTS Reading Table Completion questions is identical to that of Summary Completion. You will be required to fill in the blanks in a table with the appropriate words or figures. So, let us rethink how to proceed.

• Make sure you read the instructions carefully. It will help you determine the word limit (no more than two, one word, etc.) and important terms like ‘using words from the text’ or ‘from the text’. You have to follow these strictly.
• Check the incomplete table first. Also, think about keywords and how they could be represented by synonyms or paraphrasing.
• Study the reading text by using the skimming and scanning techniques. It will help to establish the answer quickly. When scanning for your answer, make sure you are thinking about paraphrasing and synonyms.
• Don’t waste precious time to locate information if you are unable to find it quickly. It is recommended that you move on to the next question.
• The answers appear in the same order as the questions. So, follow the sequence.
• Be aware of spelling mistakes and remember that your answer should be grammatically correct.

Matching Information:

In this sort of question, you will be given a list of three to six statements, and you will need to match the information in each statement to the relevant data in a paragraph in the reading passage.

• Begin by reading the instructions and follow it with the list of statements – You will get an idea of the main idea of each statement. Also, figure out the keywords from each statement.
• Do not waste time in reading the whole passage – Use these reading techniques to go through the text and find out which paragraph or section contains the relevant information of the statements.
• One paragraph will contain information given in a statement – While one statement corresponds to one passage, some passages may not have any answer. Remember this to avoid repetition or wasting your time.
• Identify the answer – Once you identify the keywords and find out the corresponding paragraph that contains the information, follow this process for the others.

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