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The Abu Dabbab albite granite (ADAG), in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt, hosts the most significant rare metal ore deposit in the northern part of the Neoproterozoic Arabian-Nubian Shield. Here, we report detailed field, petrographic, mineralogical and geochemical investigation of the ADAG, an isolated stock-like granitic body with sharp intrusive contacts against metamorphic country rocks, probably emplaced at about 600 Ma. The fine-grained porphyritic upper unit is a preserved remnant of the shallowly-emplaced apex of the magma chamber, whereas the medium-grained lower unit crystallized at deeper levels under subvolcanic conditions. The peraluminous leucocratic ADAG shares common geochemical characteristics with post-collisional intraplate A-type magmas. In addition to the conspicuous enrichment in Na 2 O, the ADAG is remarkable for its anomalous concentrations of Ta, Nb, Li, Hf, Ga, Sn, Zn and heavy rare-earth elements. Nb-Ta minerals in the ADAG are mixed with Fe-Mn oxides, forming black patches that increase in abundance toward of the base of the intrusion. Columbite-tantalite, cassiterite and wolframite are the most important ore minerals. Pronounced negative Eu anomalies (Eu/Eu * = 0.10-0.24) reflect extreme magmatic fractionation and perhaps the effects of late fluid-rock interaction. The ADAG was most likely generated by partial melting of the juvenile middle crust of the ANS as the geotherm was elevated by erosional uplift following lithospheric delamination and it was emplaced at the intersection of lineations of structural weakness. Although formation of the ADAG and its primary enrichment in rare metals are essentially due to magmatic processes, late-stage metasomatism caused limited redistribution of rare metals. Fluid-driven subsolidus modification was limited to the apex of the magma chamber and drove development of greisen, amazonite, and quartz veins along fracture systems.

a b s t r a c tMapping the spatial distributions of the fluvial deposits in terms of particles size as well as imaging the near-surface features along the non-vegetated aeolian sand-sheets, provides valuable geological information. Thus this work aims at investigating the contribution of the dual-polarization SAR data in classifying and mapping the surface sediments as well as investigating the effect of the radar incident-angle on improving the images of the hidden features under the desert sand cover. For mapping the fluvial deposits, the covariance matrix ([C 2 ]) using four dual-polarized ALOS/PALSAR-1 scenes cover the Wadi El Matulla, East Qena, Egypt were generated. This [C 2 ] matrix was used to generate a supervised classification map with three main classes (gravel, gravel/sand and sand). The polarimetric scattering response, spectral reflectance and temperatures brightness of these 3 classes were extracted. However for the aeolian deposits investigation, two Radarsat-1 and three full-polarimetric ALOS/PALSAR-1 images, which cover the northwestern sandy part of Sinai, Egypt were calibrated, filtered, geocoded and ingested in a GIS database to image the near-surface features. The fluvial mapping results show that the values of the radar backscattered coefficient (r°) and the degree of randomness of the obtained three classes are increasing respectively by increasing their grain size. Moreover, the large incident angle (h i = 39.7) of the Radarsat-1 image has revealed a meandering buried stream under the sand sheet of the northwestern part of Sinai. Such buried stream does not appear in the other optical, SRTM and SAR dataset. The main reason is the enhanced contrast between the low backscattered return from the revealed meandering stream and the surroundings as a result of the increased backscattering intensity, which is related to the relatively large incident angle along the undulated surface of the study area. All archaeological observations support the existence of paleo-fresh water lagoon at the northwestern corner of the study area, which might have been the discharge lagoon of the revealed hidden stream.

Interviewing 368 mothers revealed that 20.4% of babies were entirely bottle-fed at birth. The practice increased to 42.4% at 3 months and 47.2% at 6 months. The majority of mothers gave the lack of breast milk as the reason for starting artificial feeding. Fifty percent of mothers continued breast-feeding until the infant was at least 1 year of age. Seventy-eight percent of mothers of bottle-fed babies did not know proper formula-mixing, and 50% were not cleaning bottles properly. Weaning (giving solid or semisolid food) was delayed beyond 6 months in more than 40% of babies. Thirteen percent of the babies were not immunized. The majority of the babies from the Tihama area were not immunized and were being given raw goat milk, and 33% of them had brucellosis.

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