Deserts
Note: For more information click the linkThe Thar Desert
Desertification is land degradation in arid, semi arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. This latest. Internationally negotiated definition of desertification was adopted by the UN conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992.
North American Deserts
Sonora Desert
The Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona and Northwestern Mexico is well known for its beauty and many spectacular and grand cacti. The abundant cacti and other succulents simply defy the harsh climate with exuberant biodiversity.
Southwest Deserts
A traveler crossing overland from Los Angeles to Big Bend National Park in West Texas encounters three of North America's four great deserts, each ecologically distinct and strikingly beautiful.
Great Basin Desert
The Great Basin Desert, the largest U. S. desert, covers an arid expanse of about 190,000 square miles and is bordered by the Sierra Nevada Range on the west and the Rocky Mountains on the east, the Columbia Plateau to the north and the Mojave and Sonoran deserts to the south.
Mojave Desert
The transition from the hot Sonoran Desert to the cooler and higher Great Basin is called the Mojave Desert. This arid region of southeastern California and portions of Nevada, Arizona and Utah, occupies more than 25,000 square miles.
The Chihuahuan Desert
Most of the Chihuahuan Desert -- the largest desert in North America covering more than 200,000 square miles -- lies south of the international border. In the U.S. it extends into parts of New Mexico, Texas and sections of southeastern Arizona. Its minimum elevation is above 1,000 feet, but the vast majority of this desert lies at elevations between 3,500 and 5,000 feet.
The Chihuahuan Desert Region
A desert region can be defined many ways. To a physical scientist such as a meteorologist, a desert can be defined as an area receiving an average annual rainfall of 10" or less.
White Sands Desert of New mexico
At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain ringed valley called the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world's great natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico.
Death Valley National Park
Many first time visitors to Death Valley are surprised it is not covered with an endless sea of sand. Less than one percent of the desert is covered with dunes, yet the shadowed ripples and stark, graceful curves define "desert" in our imaginations.
Asian Deserts
Gobi Desert
Middle Eastern/African Deserts
The Sahara Desert
Wadi Rum: Jordan
Catch a camel into the Wadi Rum desert and you'll find yourself in 'Heroic and Biblical Adventure' country. You'd be forgiven for thinking that, at any moment, you'll stumble across a bearded and besandalled Charlton Heston looking square-jawed and self-righteous. It was, after all, in this neck of the woods that seas got parted and the tribes of Israel did some serious wandering.
South American Deserts
1. Atacama Desert
The Atacama desert in Chile is as parched as a parson's Sunday sermon. In fact, it's the driest desert in the world. There are parts of it where rain has never been recorded and the precious little precipitation (1cm/0.3in per year) that does fall comes from fog.
Cold Deserts
1. Ultima Thule, Greenland
There's nothing in the law books that says a desert has to be hot, sandy and unpleasant; it's equally legitimate for a desert to be cold, icy and unpleasant. As long as it's uncultivated and uninhabitable it makes the grade, desertwise, and Ultima Thule is a shoo-in.
2. Siberia, Russia
Think Siberia and think cold. Think hoarfrosted faces, howling wolves, frozen mountains, salt mines, human chain gangs and exile. Maxim Gorky once called it a 'land of chains and ice' and, until recently, the description still held good. Tsars and Party apparatchiks might have had opposing political ideologies but they were of one mind when it came to Siberia.