Grand Erg Occidental The mean elevation of the Grand Erg Occidental is about 500 m, on average higher than the elevation of the Grand Erg Oriental, but not as high as the neighboring Tademaït to the southwest. This desolate region is a practically uninhabited area; there are no permanent villages and there are no roads crossing it. Grand Erg Occidental The Grand Erg Occidental (, al-ʿIrq al-Gharbī al-Kabīr), (also known as the Western Sand Sea) is the second largest erg in northern Algeria after the Grand Erg Oriental. It covers an area of approximately . The sand dunes in the erg are formed
Erg Erg The erg is a unit of energy and work equal to 10 joules. It originated in the centimetre–gram–second (CGS) system of units. It has the symbol "erg". The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from "ergon" (ἔργον), a Greek word meaning "work" or "task". An erg is the amount of work done by a force of one dyne exerted for a distance of one centimeter. In the CGS base units, it is equal to one gram centimeter-squared per second-squared (g·cm/s). It is thus equal to 10 joules or 100 nanojoules (nJ) in SI units. An