9781422277515

provide scarce moisture for plants and animals, and rainfall is no more than 8 inches (20 cm) per year. The Australian Desert covers a large part of the continent’s “outback.” Some 70 percent of Australia receives less than 500 mm of rain per year, and 18 percent of the country is true desert. There are four major deserts in the western part of the continent: the Great Sandy Desert, the Gibson Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, and the Simpson Desert. The Atacama Desert on the western side of the Andes in South America is another coastal desert. It is the world’s driest desert apart from Antarctica. The Patagonian Desert is a high-altitude, cold-winter rain- shadow desert. It extends from the Andes mountains almost to the Atlantic, down the length of Argentina and into Chile. The Thar Desert of India and Pakistan once contained fer- tile river valleys, until a change of wind direction moved the monsoon’s path further east some five thousand years ago. There are some semi-arid parts of the Thar where animal and plant life flourishes, more so than in many other deserts. The Turkestan Desert of central Asia has no rain between May and October, and its severe winter frosts kill many ani- mals. It consists of two neighboring deserts, the Karakum and the Kyzylkum, located in the countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The Ever-Changing Desert A desert is always on the move. Even if it is not spreading, there is constant movement and change within a desert, caused by winds and moving particles of sand and earth. The desert’s

14

Deserts