Deserts of the World - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 9

Khesekwe pan

A

A'

Grass pan
surface

A

60

0 1500 3000 ft

A'

Scale for profiles

Koes pan Outer dune

Inner dune

Clay
dune

B
NW

B'

SE

Clay
dune

0 1

Outer
dune

miles

B

B'

Inner
dune

FIGURE 1.8
Diagrams of dunes associated with pans in the Kalahari Desert. (Modified from material supplied by
N. Lancaster.)

by mountain ranges, and has a primarily winter rainfall regime that produces 5-16 in. per
annum. Information on the evolution of this arid region is sparse.
The dating of the various fluctuations of climate in the southern African region is still
highly uncertain. Lancaster 30 remarks that “there is no reliable chronology of events, nor
any agreement upon the nature of the changes in regional climatic patterns,” while Butzer 47
finds that “the Kalahari-Namib evidence is both patterned and ichoate. No distinctive
interregional contrasts emerge, and different categories of data are often difficult to
reconcile within one area.”

1.4 The Great Indian Desert or Thar
The arid zone of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent extends from the
Aravalli Range in the east to the Indus Plain and the mountains of Baluchistan in
the west (Figure 1.9). In Rajasthan, it is traditionally called Marwar or “place of death,” but