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Desert of Wandering
The desert of the forty-year wandering was not the Sinai. Peninsula, but a much larger area. The inclination of the historians is generally to deny the ancients long itineraries; Midian being the Medina of Moslem times, actually deep in the Arabian Peninsula, all indications in the Old Testament are for a deep penetration of the Arab Peninsula by the wandering Israelites who escaped the land of Egypt destroyed by the catastrophe in the mid-fifteenth century before the present era.

There are autochthonous Arab traditions about the wandering tribes led by Mosaikaia, his brother Arnran, and his sister Zeripha. These traditions have not been borrowed from the Old Testament or rabbinical tradition. From the Bible and Midrashim, the Arabs culled much of the content of the Koran, but they did not realize that their traditions about Mosaikaia (and the catastrophe that took place in his time) are of independent origin, though referring to the same persons and events.

All together indicates that the Israelites under Moses did not spend forty years in the small triangular Sinai Peninsula, but in the western regions of Arabia.

http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/deswan.htm

You may find this above snippet of interest. I am personally fascinated by the meeting of the fleeing slaves and egyptians shortly after the crossing of the jam suf (reed or red sea) with the nomad arabs coming from the opposite direction.

Volcano Information Summary
Eruptive History:

Country: Saudi Arabia
Subregion Name: Western Arabia
Volcano Number: 0301-06=
Volcano Type: Volcanic field
Volcano Status: Historical
Last Known Eruption: 650 AD ± 50 years
Summit Elevation: 2093 m 6,867 feet
Latitude: 25.00°N * 25°0'0"N
Longitude: 39.92°E 39°55'0"E
Harrat Khaybar, one of Saudi Arabia's largest volcanic fields, covers an area of more than 14,000 sq km north of Madinah (Medina). A spectacular 100-km-long N-S linear vent system contains felsic lava domes, tuff rings, the Jabal Qidr stratovolcano, as well as numerous small basaltic cones. At least seven post-neolithic (<4500 years old) and eight "historical" (<1500 years old) lava flows are present. In the latter category is the prominent 55-km-long Habir lava flow as well as Jabal Qidr stratovolcano, the only stratovolcano in the Harrats of western Saudi Arabia. An eruption was reported at Harrat Khaybar in early Mohammedan times during the 7th century AD. Lavas from Harrat Khaybar overlap older lavas of Harrat Kura to the west and merge with lavas from Harrat Ithnayn to the north.

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0301-06=

The Arabian Peninsula has over 85 thousand sq klms of lava fields and countless limestone caves.

http://www.saudicaves.com/gallery.html