Because Lake Yoa has been in existence continuously since the Humid Period its waters have protected the sediments accumulated at the bottom from erosion and dispersal.

This conclusion contrasts with work done by Peter deMenocal of Columbia University and colleagues, who in 2000 drilled a core of ocean sediment off the western coast of Mauritania.

Because of the dust levels in this core deMenocal and his co-authors concluded that desert conditions came on quickly, over a period of a few centuries.

The ocean core represents what is essentially a mass survey of the entire northern portion of the African land mass while the Lake Yoa data would survey more specifically conditions in the areas to the south and west of it, which supplied material to the prevailing trade winds of Holocene time before they crossed Lake Yoa.

It is possible both that, northern Africa became quickly and generally drier, and that, in specific areas the process of desertification moved through a series of more gradual ecological transitions.