About Deserts

What is Desert?

Around a fifth of the entire world's land consists of deserts. Deserts are made up of rocks, stones,
and the rest, and the major of the part is sand based. Deserts are completely infertile where
nothing grows, and these types of deserts are actually known as the true deserts which are rare in
the world.

While looking at the world's map, one can clearly observe that there is a specific pattern where
the deserts exist. For example, almost all of the deserts lie within the 15 degrees to 30 degrees
parallel of north and south longitude at the equator. They exist on the western parts of the
continents where winds are offshore. We discussed above that nothing grows in deserts except
some of the specific plants like cactus, so deserts are very dry and have aridity. And because of
dryness, the temperature and environment become so much hot. Some of the examples for these
deserts are Sahara Desert, Atacama Desert, Thar Desert, Namib Desert, the Deserts of Great
Australian, and the south-west USA also including northern Mexico. While if we talk about the
mid-latitudes, deserts like Turkestan and Gobi are considered as the hottest ones by temperature.

Types of Desert:

The blowing of winds and moving of water transport material from one place to another causing
change in the surface of the desert, just because of this, there are five different deserts which
exist in the world classified by their particular characteristics.
Rocky Desert:

As the name itself shows that these types of deserts are made up of large bare rocks, theses rocks
are polished ones and smooth in structure. The whole region becomes sterile. Some of the best
rock deserts in the world include the Sahara Desert, Hamada al Humra located in Libya, this
desert is stretched on an area of approximately 20,000 square miles.

Stony Desert:

It consists of ex-extensive sheets of rough pebbles and gravel that cannot be blown off by the
winds. These stony deserts are much more open than the sandy deserts, and there are large herds
of camels held. The word "Serir" is used in Libya and Egypt; stony deserts are called "Reg"
elsewhere in Africa.

Sandy Desert:

This is a sandy sea that characterizes the typical image of desert scenery. In the heart of the
deserts, winds dump vast stretches of undulating dunes. The intricate ripple patterns on the dune
surfaces suggest wind direction. In Libya, the Calanscio Sand Sea is representative of a sandy
desert. Sandy deserts in Turkestan are known as koum, too.

Badlands Desert:

The word 'badlands' was first granted to an arid region in South Dakota, the USA, where the hills
were severely eroded into gullies and ravines by intermittent rainstorms. The scale of water
action on hill slopes and rock surfaces was so high that the inhabitants left the entire area.
Deserts with similar characteristics are often referred to as badlands, for example, Arizona's
Painted Desert, which lies southeast of the Colorado River Grand Canyon.

Mountain Deserts:

Some deserts such as plateaus and mountain ranges are located on highlands. The desert
mountains have been dissected by erosion into rough, serrated shapes of wild peaks and rugged
ranges. Wadis cut Their steep slopes (steep-sided, mostly dry valleys) and sharp, irregular edges
have been carved out by the frost action. The Ahaggar Mountains and the Tibesti Mountains are
good examples in the Sahara Desert as mountain deserts.

Types of Land Formed by Wind Deposition:

Many of the materials come up with the pressure of the wind and settle somewhere. Dust
material travel in the air for a very long time like it is estimated that the dust particles almost
travel 2,300 miles continuously and then finally settle on the sea or land. So, these dust particles,
when gather they form a specific type of land, i.e., Dunes and Loess. We will discuss these
featured lands in detail to clear the concept,

Dunes:

In reality, dunes are sand hills created by sand deposition and shaped by wind movement. These
can be active or live dunes embedded in vegetation, continuously on the move, or passive fixed
dunes. In the erg desert, where a sea of sand is shifted continuously, reshaped, and re-deposited
into a variety of features, dunes are most well-represented.
And because of their different features due to their size, the shape they are given different names
like lateral dunes, tail dunes, sword dunes, head dunes, hairpin dunes, transverse dunes, etc. At
the same time, the most common of them are Barchans and serifs, which we will discuss further.

Barchan

These types of dunes usually crescentic type or moon-shaped and may occur individually or in
the form of groups. We are live dunes that advance steadily in front of winds coming from a
specific prevailing direction. They are predominant in the Turkestan deserts and the Sahara.

Barchans are typically caused by a chance deposition of sand at an obstacle, such as a grass patch
or a heap of rocks. Because of the reduced frictional retardation of the winds around the edges,
they occur transverse to the wind, so that their horns thin out and become lower in wind
direction.

Seifs

Seif is an Arabic word that means a knife or sword. These are long, narrow ridges of sand, lying
parallel to the path of the prevailing winds often over one hundred miles wide. The high, serrated
ridges can reach an altitude of more than 200 feet. The seif's Crestline rises and falls into other
peaks and saddles in numerous successions like monstrous saw teeth. The prevailing winds blow
between the dune lines straight down the road, so that they are swept clear of sand and stay
smooth. The eddies that are set up a blast to the sides of the corridor and drop the sand to shape
the dunes, having less strength.
Loess:

Blown outside the desert boundaries, the fine dust is deposited as Loess on adjacent lands. It is a
friendly yellow material and is usually very fertile. Sure, Loess is fine loam, lime-rich, very
coherent, and highly porous. So that the air is still dry, water sinks in readily.

Streams have carved deep valleys through the thick, soft loess mantle, and the topography of
badlands will grow. It is soft that roads constructed through a loess area will soon sink, and their
walls will rise steeply. The most extensive loess deposit is located in the loess plateau of the
Hwang-Ho basin in north-west China.

An area of 250,000 square miles is expected to cover, and deposits have accumulated to a depth
of 200 to 500 feet! This yellow wind-borne dust from the Gobi Desert in China is named
'Hwangtu'-the yellow planet! But the original term loess comes from a village in Alsace, France
bearing that name, where these deposits took place.