Paradise Lost? Geography, Weather, and the Environment - Don't Know Much About Geography - page 140

To the north of Iran is the Kara Kum , a desert of more than one hundred thousand square miles cov-
ering nearly 80 percent of Turkmenistan, and the nearby Kyzyl Kum , another desert covering more than
one hundred thousand square miles in the republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Moving further east, beyond the Tien Shan Mountains that create the natural border between Russia
and China, is the Takla Makan , a one-hundred-thousand-square-mile desert in the great basin between the
Tien Shan range and the Altun Shan and Kunlun Shan ranges that rise into Tibet. The other large desert
area of East Asia is the Gobi in Mongolia and northern China, the world's second-largest desert, covering
more than five hundred thousand square miles. Long home to the wandering Mongols who once created a
great empire that spread out of China and stretched from Vietnam to Poland, the Gobi has proven a vast
storehouse of prehistoric finds. It is the site of significant fossil dinosaur discoveries, as well as many early
human implements that date as far back as a hundred thousand years.
Most people think of steamy rain forests or teeming cities like Calcutta when they think of India. But
there is a sizable desert, called the Great Indian or Thar , that straddles northwestern India and eastern
Pakistan.
There is less land in the southern hemisphere and consequently fewer deserts. But about one half of
Australia is a desert plateau. Although it is called the Great Australian Desert, Australia's large, arid in-
terior section is actually made up of four separate deserts. These Australian deserts are the Simpson , the
Great Victoria , the Great Sandy , and the Gibson.
In South America, Chile's Atacama Desert is very small. It is hemmed in by the Andes, which keeps
out winds and any rain. The Atacama has the distinction of being the driest place on Earth. In 1971, it re-
ceived rain for the first time in four hundred years.
In contrast to all of the world's great deserts, the deserts of the United States are not very impressive.
The deserts of the American Southwest are also rather small when taken individually. But they are more
striking when seen as part of a region known as the Great Basin , a vast area stretching from lower Oregon
and Idaho, covering most of Nevada, western Utah, and down to southeastern California. The area is kept
dry by the presence of the Rocky Mountains, which prevent warm, wet air from the Pacific from reaching
the central states that lie within the “rain shadow” of the Rockies. The Mojave is the largest of Amer-
ica's deserts, covering fifteen thousand square miles. It is an area of barren mountains and desert valleys in
Southern California that receives only five inches of rain per year. A rich source of minerals, the Mojave is
also the location of Death Valley , the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (282 feet below sea level).
The Colorado Desert lies south of the Mojave in California and extends into Mexico's Baja California.
It is bordered on the east by the Colorado River and features the Salton Sea, a shallow saline lake that was
created when the Colorado flooded in 1905.
The Great Salt Lake Desert , in Utah, extends west from Great Salt Lake to the Nevada border. The
level part near the Nevada border forms the famed Bonneville Salt Flats, where land speed records have
frequently been set.
The Black Rock and Smoke Creek deserts are in northwestern Nevada near the border with California.