During the Holocene, the apolyhaline conditions in interdunal ephemeral lakes in the Lake Chad region led to various diagenetic processes, which resulted in: (a) clay authigenesis, (b) organic matter lithification (plants and cyanobacterial mats), (c) precipitation of sodium silicate (magadiite, kenyaite, zeolite), and (d) chert neoformation. Each step in this diagenetic process involves silica, which can be highly mobile under such conditions. Therefore, the paleoenvironmental variations can be investigated using the Si cycle.