St.

Augustine University of Tanzania 12/17/2018

Department of Geography
Introduction to Physical Geography
Ngogo Mang'enyi Ngogo

DESERT PROCESSES AND

LANDFORMS

INTRODUCTION
• Landscape evolution in arid and semi-arid regions
of the earth can take on a distinctive
characteristic of their own.
• These areas are obviously marked by low annual
precipitation, distinctive floral/faunal habitation,
and characteristic ephemeral (seasonal)
erosion/deposition processes, which include both
water and wind as principal driving agents.

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Characteristics of Deserts
1. Dry Climate: Rate Evaporation > Rate of
Precipitation
a) - Arid climate: <10 to 15 inches/year (Desert
Regime)
b) Semi-arid: 10-25 inches/year (Steppe Regime)
c) Nature of Rainfall/precipitation- overall year
round precipitation is low in desert areas, but is
intense in instantaneous accumulation rates
(heavy storm downfall common), flash floods
are common. As a result, rain/surface erosion is
the dominant erosion process in deserts (NOT
WIND as one might expect)

2. Causal Factors of Dryness:

• Latitudinal Effects of Global Surface
Heating/Global Weathering patterns
– e.g. Sub-tropical latitude deserts such as Sahara,
Arabian, Australian.
• Orographic/Rain Shadow Effects
– e.g. interior of Pacific Northwest, Mohave desert
of 163 California.
• Lack of significant vegetative cover (associated
with inhospitable climate lacking water).

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3. High Landscape erosion Potential: associated

with lack of vegetative cover, intense rainfall
events, flash floods, weathering, all couple
together to present erosion potential.
4. Weathering- Physical weathering
predominates (chemical weathering is at
minimum in absence of water) with such
processes as salt wedging, thermal exansion,
frost wedging, and plant rooting.

5. Poor soil development- pedogenesis is

generally limited in arid areas but distinctive
nonetheless.
6. Impermeable surface layers possible- in the
form of bedrock, hardpans and salt beds.
7. Sand- desert sand generated during the
physical weathering process, as opposed to
clay dominated soils in humid/chemically
weathered areas.

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8. Drainage Patterns- Dominated by ephemeral

streams, flowing either seasonally or during
storm periods.
9. Closed or internal drainage basins are
common in desert regions as opposed to
open drainage basins in humid areas.

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF DESERTS

• Desert and Steppe conditions cover upwards
of 25-30% of total continental land area
forming the largest component of all climatic
regimes.
• Most global deserts lies between 30˚South
and 30˚North of the Equator

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GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF DESERTS

A:Subtropical Deserts
• At latitudes near or above the Tropics of
Cancer and Capricorn.
 Tropic of Cancer: includes Sahara Desert of N.
Africa, the Arabian Desert of the Middle East.
Tropic of Capricorn: includes much of Australian
interior, and interior Pampas of Argentina.

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Subtropical Deserts

Mid-latitude Deserts
• the Gobi Desert of central Asia (Mongolian)
and the Western interior of the United States.

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Mid-latitude Deserts

Desert Facts and Figures:

• Largest Desert: Sahara of Northern Africa (10% of
total desert area)
• Sandiest Desert: the Arabian Desert of Arabian
Peninsula
• Hottest Temperature Recorded: 136 degrees F at
Libya, 165 1922, Sahara Desert .
• Greatest 1 day temperature fluctuation: 100 degrees
F in Algeria, N. Africa (1927), Sahara Desert Highest
Annual Avg. Temperature: 94 degrees F in Ethiopia,
Sahara Desert
• Least Annual Average Precipitation: 0.03 inches in
Arica, Chile (coastal Chile and Peru form some of the
driest desert areas on earth)

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FLUVIAL PROCESSES IN DESERT/ARID

REGIONS
• Running water is the most important agent of
erosion and transportation in desert
landscape development

A: Erosional Characteristics:
i. Rain splash, sheetwash, rilling and
flashflooding is common in surface drainage
process owing to lack of vegetative cover.
ii. Although sporadic, intense rainfall episodes
result in great volumes of sediment being
mobilized in a relatively short period of time.

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iv. Stream gradients may be steep but

ephemeral nature of flow results in
unpredictable imbalance between erosion,
transporation and deposition.
v. Drainage basins tend to be closed (i.e. not
through flowing) with internal drainage and
basin sedimentation
vi. Desert drainage systems tend to be bedload
dominated by coarse sand and gravel, finer
silts, clays and sands are readily transported
and removed from the sediment population
by the sorting action of wind.

FLUVIAL EROSIONAL DESERT

LANDSCAPE FEATURES
• Fluvial Erosion is the dominant landscape
modification process in deserts, the high rates
of mechanical/physical weathering by the
fluvial process in desert landscape is
responsible for large amounts of landscape
modification.

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1. Butte/Mesa Desert Topography

• A result of differential erosion with resistant
cap rocks holding up topographic features.
• Features are found in areas with flat lying
sedimentary rock layers with alternating
resistances to erosion.
• Sandstone or perhaps limestone often form
resistant cap rocks.

A. Butte:
- Round/oval
shaped, flat
topped
topographic
feature

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Buttes
from Navajo Spirit Tour US.

• Mesa-
elongated/table
like, flat-topped
topographic
feature

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Messa

• Pinnacles
- Tower-like spires of rock, erosional remnants
formed by cap-rocks.

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• Wadi
• Wadis (also known as arroyos), such as Wadi
Rum which is situated in Jordan, and Wadi
Bani Khalid in Oman, both within the Arabian
Desert, are dry river valleys which experience
infrequent flows of water. They are deep,
steep-sided ravines which vary in size from
being just a few metres to several hundreds of
kilometres long

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The Wadis

Canyons
• Are steep-
sided, deeper
versions of
wadis. They
are created by
the incision
(vertical/down
ward erosion)
by the action
of flowing
water in
deserts.

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2. Inselbergs
• Erosionally
resistant rock
mass, that
stands in relief
as more easily
eroded
material is
striped/erode
d from the
surrounding
landscape.

Inselberg

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4. Pediments
• gently inclined, concave up, ramp that extends
outward from a mountain front, found along
the lower slopes of mountains in desert regions

Pediments

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4. Badland Topography-
• Intricately rilled and barren terrain in arid
regions.
• Common in areas underlain by horizontal strata
of shale and clay formations that are poorly
consolidated and subject to rilling and gullying.
• An extensive network of convoluted rills and
gullies forming a "badland" topography

Badland Topography-

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Fluvial Deposition In Arid Landscapes

• Eroded debris is commonly deposited in form
of talus slopes and alluvial deposits on valley
floors.

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Depositional Sites
• Pediment Zone- "foot of the mountains“
- The zone at base of desert mountain ranges
that forms the site of fluvial depositions from
mountain canyons. (forms deposition site as
the break in slope of streams exiting steep
mountain canyons, results in decreased
gradient, velocity and subsequent deposition)

• Intermontane Basins:
• Part of the internal drainage network, low
areas between mountain ranges, often site of
complex interaction between lake basins,
aeolian processes, and fluvial regimes

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Fluvial Depositional Features

• Alluvial Fans
• fan-shaped
deposit of
alluvial debris
as mountain
stream
drainages
empty onto
the piedmont
area.

• Bajada
- Coalescing alluvial fans from adjacent mountain
canyons forming a "fan apron" along the
mountain front.

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• Playa lake
• is an ephemeral lakebed, meaning that the lake is
filled with water only for transient time periods.

Fluvial erosion & Depositional features

in Desert Areas

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AEOLIAN PROCESSES IN DESERT

ECOSYSTEMS: WIND PROCESSES
• Desert winds readily move sediment in sparse
vegetative regimes, but the size fraction is
generally limited to clays, silts, and fine sand.
• Wind may seem extensive in deserts, but plays
relatively minor role in major landscape
modification processes.
• Wind- related to horizontal air movements
with turbulence in air flow paths, and variable
velocities common.

• Aeolian" processes- are those related to wind

(greek root of wind).
• Driving Force: Solar Insolation + Atmospheric
Phenomena

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Wind Patterns and Moving Air Masses

in Desert Areas
1. Driving Force:
- Wind: generated by differences in air
pressure
 High-to-low pressure air flow = "wind“
- Solar Insolation
 Atmospheric Pressure Differential: derived from
unequal heating of earth's surface by solar
radiation

2. Local Winds
- E.g. land heating during day, air warms up and
into motion

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Aeolian Erosion Processes

1. Deflation
- general movement of loose particles by shear
force in suspension or by rolling along ground
surface

a) blowouts/Deflation Basins
- Areas which are selective deflated on finer
grain-size fractions of loose unconsolidated
ground sediment

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b) oasis, swamp or pan

 Because the blowouts/hollows or cavities that
form trap surface water, or at least store more
water than their immediate surroundings, this
promotes some chemical weathering of the
underlying rock, which in turn causes further
removal of talus by wind action.
 The depth of the water table regulates the
depth to which a depression hollow can erode,
because as soon as the water table is
intersected, an oasis, swamp or pan is formed.

Makgadikhadi Pan in Botswana

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An Oasis in Peru

2. Abrasion
- Sand and silt act as effective tools to abrade 5
(scour) the land surface while it is transported
by wind.
- i.e. sandblasting effect eroding and setting
additional sediment into motion.

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a) Rock pitting, etching, faceting, and polishing.

b) Ventifacts-
polished and
abraded stones
on desert floor.

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c) Desert
Pavement
A layer of
coarse gravel
and boulders
left stranded
on desert
floor as wind
selectively
deflates finer
grain sizes
out of area.

d) Yardang
- Is one large desert landform that is sculpted by
the wind though deflation and abrasion.

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Yardangs in Egypt

e) Zeugens
Tabular masses of harder rocks separated by
trenches/furrows. Typically zeugen are mushroom-
shaped rock that has been eroded by the abrasive
action of windblown sand

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An Example Zeugen

Pedestal Rocks (Mushroom)

• Many rock-outcrops in the deserts are easily
susceptible to wind deflation and abrasion.
• Softer layers in these outcrops are worn out
easily, leaving remnants of more resistant rocks
in the shape of mushroom with a slender stalk
and capped by a broad and rounded pear shape
above.
• Usually a product of chemical weathering, but
wind abrasion also contributes in that the
chemically weakened (weathered) softer layers
are easily abraded by wind.

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Aeolian Transportation:
• Finest silt and clays are often carried furthest
out of desert basin, while coarser sand is
deposited within 171 the desert floor.
• Generally sand is deposited at any point
where wind velocity decreases either naturally
or via shadow/pockets.

DEPOSITIONAL LANDFORMS
• Wind is a good sorting agent. Depending upon
the velocity of wind, different sizes of grains are
moved along the floors by rolling or saltation and
carried in suspension and in this process of
transportation itself, the materials get sorted.
• When the wind slows or begins to die down,
depending upon sizes of grains and their critical
velocities, the grains will begin to settle.

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• Therefore good sorting of grains can be

found in depositional landforms made by
wind.
• More formally, wind will deposit its talus
load when its supply of kinetic energy is too
low to carry the talus mass.
• Since a desert has an abundant supply of
sand and with nearly constant wind
directions prevailing, depositional features
in arid regions can develop anywhere.

DEPOSITIONAL LANDFORMS
• The three commonly distinguished landforms
formed by wind deposition of talus are
Draas,
Dunes and
Ripples.

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Draas and ergs

• Draas are huge sand accumulations and
where these converge, a landform termed erg
is formed – such as the star-shaped Great
Continental Erg in Algeria. There are
approximately twenty ergs in the Sahara,
which collectively cover about 15% of the
Sahara’s surface area.

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Sand Dunes
• Dry hot deserts are good places for sand dune
formation.
• Obstacles to initiate dune formation are equally
important. Dune form, i.e. their shape and size, is
controlled or determined by three factors,
namely the strength and direction of wind, the
amount of sand available and the amount (if any)
of vegetation present.
• All dunes are mobile to some extent, and can be
classified into live dunes and fixed dunes on the
basis of their mobility.

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Live dunes or free dunes

• have no fixed position, but migrate downwind
by erosion on the gently inclined windward
side and deposition on the leeward side (slip
face) in the same way as described for fixed
dunes.

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Free Dune

Fixed dunes
• Tend not to move and their shapes are
relatively stable and static and they are usually
secured down by vegetation, rocks and
opposing winds.
• They are formed when transported sand
settles in the lee of an obstacle such as a bush
or a rock, causing the obstruction to grow in
size, capturing more sand.

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Fixed Dunes at Bankass Mali

Longitudinal dunes
• Also known as linear dunes, form when the
supply of sand is poor and the wind direction is
constant, or where sand is more abundant and
cross winds converge - often along coasts where
the winds from the sea and those from the land
meet and push the sand into long lines.
• They appear as long ridges of considerable length
but low in height.
• The wind channels between existing dunes and
forms a vortex flow, which then shapes and
maintains the dune form.

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Seif dunes
• Originate from barchanlike forms, but have only
one wing or point due to shifting wind conditions
disturbing the one point.
• The remaining lone wings of seifs can grow very
long and high. Seifs are the dominant dune form in
the Sahara and some of them are up to 100 m long
and have a local relief of up to 100 m as well.
• The seifs in the central Namib Desert south of
Walvis Bay reach heights between 50 m and 250
m, reputed to be of the highest dunes in the world.

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Barchan Dunes
• Solitary crescent shaped dunes with their tips
pointing downwind (i.e. horns point
downwind). Steep leeward slipface on on
concave side of dune.

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Formation of Barchan Dunes

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Transverse dunes
• When the supply of sand is plentiful, regular
shaped dunes like barchans can coalesce and
lose their individual characteristics, forming
crescent-shaped (or barchanoid) ridges. If the
ridges become fairly straight, they are called
transverse dunes

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Star dunes
• Mountainous piles of sand known as star
dunes dominate the inland margin of the sand
sea where high winds blow from all directions.
They are reputed to be among the highest
dunes in the world, as high as 220 m or even
higher when they rest on a raised surface.
• Star dunes are named for their shape as seen
from above, a lot of sharp ridges winding
outwards and downwards from a central cres

Star Dunes

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Parabolic dunes (blowout dunes)

• Parabolic dunes form when sandy surfaces are
partially covered with vegetation.
• They are also crescent shaped, but unlike the
barchan dunes, their points or wings (horns)
point into the wind, while the arch is downwind.
• Parabolic dunes reach heights of up to 20 or 30
m except at their crescent, where more sand
piles up as it is halted or slowed by surrounding
vegetation.

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Loess
• This is the lightest material carried by the
winds which form a so-called blanket covering
the existing land.
• This blanket is easily eroded and rain
penetrates through them rapidly. A large
portion of the world’s loess has its origin from
deserts

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Loess is a predominantly silt-sized sediment

originating from broken-down rock fragments,
which is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown
dust. Loess is fairly even- sized sediment, pale
yellow or buff in colour, typically non-stratified and
often calcerous – i.e. of calcium carbonate origin

Algeria, Tassili n Ajjer, Sahara, sand

ripples on a desert dune

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