By Michael Allaby
Lifestyles within the desolate tract holds a number organic diversifications. From camels to abandon scorpions to snakes, the biodiversity of those parts is interesting. "Deserts" provides the intricacies of this possible barren and cruel surroundings, explaining how and why deserts shape, the place they're stumbled on in the world, and their uncomplicated features. Chapter-by-chapter assurance describes the fauna of the wilderness, the historical past of those habitats, the connection of humanity to the deserts, the weather of desolate tract parts, subtropical and polar deserts, and extra. "Deserts" concludes with chapters on wasteland industries and threats to this atmosphere, together with weather swap, the spreading of deserts, overgrazing, and water depletion. New advancements for handling the deserts also are mentioned.
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Extra resources for Deserts (Biomes of the Earth)
Sample text
Most of the Atacama lies in a depression behind the mountains. 4 inch (10 mm), although it arrives as fog, not rain. 5 mm) of rain a year over a period of 21 years, including four years when no rain fell at all. 75 mm) a year over 19 years. Despite being so dry, however, the air is very humid (see the sidebar “Humidity” on page 7). Iron corrodes rapidly. GEOGRAPHY OF DESERTS The Atlantic Desert, on the western side of the Sahara, is a west coast desert associated with the cool Canary Current, and there is another west coast desert in southern Africa, associated with the Benguela Current.
This is the way many mountains form. The process of mountain-building is called an orogeny. The Himalayas and Alps result from the Alpine-Himalayan orogeny and the mountains of western America from the Cordilleran orogeny. No sooner does a mountain begin to rise than it begins to wear away by weathering—a relentless process of erosion. Although the Himalayas are still being pushed upward, this does not mean that mountaineers who climb Mount Everest today have to scale a higher peak than those who climbed the mountain several decades ago.
They are distinctive because of their brick red color. They are made from a rock called new red sandstone. New red sandstone consists of desert sand that has been cemented together. The Devon hills were once sand dunes. The weather can be very pleasant in Devon, but the climate is not in the least like that of a desert, and inland from the coast you will see fields of crops and gently rolling pastures. Nevertheless, there is no denying the evidence. British coalfields—and those of North America—were once tropical swamps.