The desert seems like a lifeless place only to an inexperienced person. In fact, life is seething and boiling here, it’s just mostly night — numerous small living creatures scurry back and forth, and plants bite their roots deep into the soil to get to groundwater. And how the desert blooms after the rain — this is generally unimaginable beauty.
Interesting facts about deserts
- The temperature difference between day and night in the deserts is monstrous — during the day it is unbearably hot, and at night it becomes very cold. Often even frost falls.
- By burying an egg in the sand on a hot day in the desert, you can bake it for 10-15 minutes.
- About half of the area of all deserts falls on Antarctica (interesting facts about Antarctica ).
- In total, deserts occupy about 20 percent of the entire earth’s land.
- The average speed of movement of sand dunes — about 10 meters annually. Yes, the speed is low, but it is impossible to stop the desert — it can wipe out entire cities from the face of the Earth. Slowly, but relentlessly.
- Dust storms, born in the desert, can cause a lot of trouble. So, every spring, the islands of Cape Verde are hit by a wind with sand raised by a storm in the African Sahara desert (interesting facts about Cape Verde).
- Sand dunes can be up to three hundred meters high.
- The highest temperature ever recorded in the Sahara desert — +58 degrees Celsius. But once, according to geologists, dense forests grew on the site of the Sahara…
- Chile’s Atacama Desert — the driest of the hot deserts, in some of its parts it has never rained in the entire history of observations. However, about a million people live in the desert. On average, about 1 mm of precipitation falls here annually.
- The Sahara, with its area of about 9 million square kilometers — the largest of the deserts. Its area is only slightly smaller than that of the United States.
- In China, more than 1,500 square kilometers of land are turned into desert every year due to active farming.
- In 2011, an English athlete crossed the Sahara desert on a bicycle in just 13 days.
- Solar energy , which goes to the Sahara desert, would be able to provide uninterrupted energy supply to all countries of Europe.
- The most beautiful desert in the world — Brazilian Lencois Maranhensis. Blue lagoons, here and there penetrating white sand — a spectacular sight.
- Uyuni Salt Flat — the largest saline desert in terms of area, located in Bolivia. Local salt reserves are estimated at about 10 billion tons.
- The dry deserts of Antarctica — the driest place on earth. Some places here have not had rain for over two million years.
- In China’s Takla Makan desert, it once snowed for thirteen days in a row (interesting facts about China).
- Simpson’s Australian Desert, or , as the locals call it, the Red Desert, is distinguished by a very unusual color of sand.