Deserts of the World
I have been presented with the task of researching deserts, hot &
cold, where they are, what type they are and so on. I have therefore
created the following graphs containing the information needed.
Cold Deserts of the World
The main form of precipitation in a cold desert is snow -- but only
ten inches or less per year.
Cold Deserts of the World
Name
Location
Size
Physical
Features
Some Plants & Animals
Special Facts
Atacama
Coasts of Peruand Chile
54,000 mi2
140,000 km2
Covered by sand dunes and pebbles. One of the driest areas on earth.
bunchgrass, cardon cactus, tamaruga trees
lizards, llama, Peruvian fox, nesting area for many seabirds
Only a few thousand people (mostly farmers) live in the inland desert
areas.
Large deposits of sodium nitrate are found in the desert. Sodium
nitrate is used to make gunpowder.
Gobi
Northern Chinaand Southern Mongolia
450,000 mi2
1,200,000 km2
Covered by sandy soil and areas of small stones called "gobi."
camel's thorn, grasses
bactrian bamel, gazelle, gerbil, jerboa, lizards, onager, wolf
Crossed by Genghis Khan in the early 13th century. Many nomads now
settling on government-run farms.
Great Basin
Western United States(Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah)
158,000 mi2
411,000 km2
Covered by sand, gravel, and clay.
Many moutains ranges, basins, and large expanses of salt flats.
greasewood, sagebrush, shadscale
bighorn sheep, jackrabbit, pocket mouse, poor-will, pronghorn
antelope, sage thrasher, side-blotched lizard
Great Salt Lake located here.
Iranian
Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
150,000 mi2
390,000 km2
Covered by coarse gray soil, stony pavement, and salt flats.
grasses, pistachio trees, shrubs
monitor lizard, onager, oryx, scorpion
World's largest salt flat located here.
Namib
Coasts of Southwestern Africa
52,000 mi2
135,000 km2
Covered by sand dunes along the coast and gravel farther inland.
Richard Rodriguez bravely addresses three controversial sub-topics under one topic full of debate. His essay, “Desert Religions” aired in 2002, highlights the shame and violence that has been associated to religion. The essayist discusses human sexuality under the interpretation of religion, the role war and terrorism play, and the masculine and feminine roles in religion.
Desert Solitaire aims to draw attention to the activities of a man voluntarily isolated in nature. It seeks to identify the strife that Abbey faces with modern day human’s treatment of his nature. As such, the argument that Abbey poses in one his earlier chapters Rocks is, that the Modern Day man is destructive and cannot be trusted to preserve nature as is.
The Tanami Desert is located in the Northern Territory in Australia. It is mostly consisted of sandy plains, but also anthills, termite mounds, rocky outcrops, sand dunes and salt lakes. There are around 350 people who live in the Tanami Desert. Lots of rain ir produced, but being in the northern part of Australia means high temperatures, meaning the rain evaporates more quickly, making it dryer. With there being a lot of dry grasslands, a higher chance of any fires happening. “But it’s not life threatening,” stated Caddie Brain, who is a journalist. Fires are created in many different ways, such as lightning, humans, accidentally or on purpose (Source Not Found). In the Tanami Desert, fire is mostly joined by
Shaw, H. J. (2006), Food Deserts: Towards the Development of a Classification. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 88: 231–247.
A food desert is a location in which a wide variety of nutrition food is not generally available (Wrigley et al. 261). Food deserts exist in places such as inner cities and isolated rural areas (Morton and Blanchard 1). The purpose of the paper supported by this annotated bibliography is to argue that food deserts do not exist because of discrimination against the poor, but because of forces related to supply and demand. This hypothesis ought to be kept in mind when considering each of the sources (Just and Wansink; Wrigley, Warm and Margetts; Jetter and Cassady; Epstein et al.; Schafft, Jensen and Hinrichs; Bitler and Haider) described in the annotated bibliography.
Shaw, H. J. (2006), Food Deserts: Towards the Development of a Classification. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 88: 231–247.
Desertification to The Sahel The region known as the Sahel is a wide stretch of land running from the Atlantic ocean to the African "Horn", an area that contains the countries of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia And it is the strip of land that separates savanna from the desert, the issue I have been researching is Desertification to the Sahel, in other terms, The Sahel is shrinking at an alarming rate. Animals have been allowed to graze on its fragile land, which has destroyed the vegetation. The people who live along the Sahel have caused it to shrink by cutting trees and bushes for fuel.
Africa was isolated geographically by the Sahara Desert. The isolation made by the Sahara Desert has affected trade, religion, and trade within Africa. Trade in Africa was impacted by the Sahara Desert because it prevented goods from civilizations residing under the Sahara Desert to reach North Africa. Religion was affected by Africa's isolation because new religious ideas could not reach part of Africa due to the Sahara Desert. The impact made by the affect on transportation was that it had caused interactions between North Africa and civilization under the Sahara Desert to be limited. The importance of the isolation made by the Sahara Desert is that it had set limitations on Africa both technologically and socially.
The critical thinking assignment for this week entails two questions, describe the hydrologic cycle and apply it to where I live, and secondly choose a landscape either glacial or desert and describe how it forms, as well as the landscape features found on it. I will use this essay to answer both questions. I will be using my hometown of Napa California to answer the first question and I have selected the Mojave Desert landscape to answer the second question.
Food deserts are one of the main causes of obesity in lower income areas, and while initiatives are being created to solve this problem, more than just a few initiatives are needed to change the obesity issue.
The day have broken dry and bright in the Gobi Desert, extraordinarily dry and bright, the young girl walked through the trail that the elders have pointed her to. It must be over 45 degrees. The elders of the nomadic tribe have once said never to travel if the temperature exceeds 40 degrees but the young girl was to prove them wrong. This trail leads to the southeast edge of the desert, China. She had always imagine and dreamt what China would look like under the golden ray of sunshine, would it shine bright like a ruby, reflecting it’s breath taking architect or would it be a rusty old country fill with 500 years of history, 500 years worth of knowledge and culture. The young girl had beg and yearn to go to China, to see the great wall, the Forbidden City and other great architect within the mysterious, Sino country. She have stopped on top of a slope, staring at the sky, it was about ten o’clock, two more hours until she will have to find a shade or shelter to hide from the boiling heat of the midday sun. She had looked down from the slope and the nomadic village is now just a mere dot, next to her was a dog with the fur of gold. It was a gift from the elders before she set off to a journey longer than she will ever imagine. She peered through the sunray and saw a thin line; this hairline is the trail that was build for the villagers to travel.
Since the early 2000s it was generally thought that “food desert” cities were contributing factors towards adult obesity. These cities were defined by their lack of grocery stores and unavailability of fresh produce, leaving only fast food and corner stores to provide food options to the residing population. A recent study co-authored by Janne Boone-Heinonen, assistant professor of epidemiology at Oregon University of Portland, spanned 15 years observing the population in food desert cities that received funding to build supermarkets and concluded that “living close to a supermarket had no measurable impact on fruit and vegetable consumption or the overall quality of a person’s diet.” These conclusions were unexpected and do not correlate with
Ethiopia is located in the Eastern region of Africa. According to the Embassy of Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Ethiopia lies between the geographical coordinates of 3’ and 14. 8’ latitude and 33’and 48’ longitude. Ethiopia encompasses a majority of the area known as the Horn of Africa. The CIA World Factbook states that Ethiopia is approximately 1,104,300 square kilometers (686,180 miles). To give a better perspective of the sheer size of this country, it is about twice the size of the state of Texas. The CIA World Factbook also states that Ethiopia’s area ranks 27th when compared to the area size of all other countries in the world.
The !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert are one of the most highly researched groups by anthropologists. They refer to themselves as the Zhun/twasi, which means, “the real people”. The !Kung San people inhabit Southern Africa, and are commonly referred to as Bushmen. Being that the !Kung San are a nomadic people; their bands are usually only seen as being fairly low in population. These people, who also inhabit parts of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, and Mozambique, have a fascinating lifestyle due to the hostile environment that the Kalahari offers (Bushmen, 2011).
Saier, M. H., Jr. (2010). Desertification and migration. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, 205(1-4), S31+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA359852755&v=2.1&u=oran95108&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=d58e000340b9e00632d610b6b1c2b1e4