One of the largest and most famous deserts on the planet is sugar, which occupies the territory of ten African countries. In ancient letters, the desert was called the “Great”. These are endless spaces of sand, clay, stone, where life is found only in rare oases. Only one river flows here, but there are small lakes in oases and large groundwater reserves. The territory of the desert occupies more than 7700 thousand square meters. km, which is slightly less than Brazil and more than Australia.
Sugar is not a single desert, but the connection of several deserts that are located in one space and have similar climatic conditions. The following deserts can be distinguished:
Libyan
Arabian
Nubian
There are smaller deserts, as well as mountains and an extinct volcano here. You can find several hollows in the sugar, among which you can allocate Qatar, 150 meters below the sea level.
Climatic conditions in the desert
In the sugar, an extraarid climate, that is, dry and hot tropical, but in the far north subtropical. In the desert, the temperature maximum is recorded on the planet +58 degrees Celsius. As for precipitation, they are absent here for several years, and when they fall out, they do not have time to reach the Earth. Frequent phenomenon in the desert the wind that raises dust storms. Wind speed can reach 50 meters per second.
There are strong drops of daily temperatures: if during the day the heat is over +30 degrees, which is impossible to breathe, nor move, then the coolness occurs at night and the temperature drops to 0. These fluctuations cannot withstand even the hardest rocks that crack and turn into sand.
In the north of the desert, there is a mountain range of Atlas, which prevents the penetration of air masses into sugar. Wet atmospheric masses from the Gulf of Guinea move from the south. The climate of the desert affects neighboring natural-climatic zones.
Sugar desert plants
Vegetation is spread out unevenly throughout the Sahara. In the desert you can find more than 30 species of endemic plants. Flora is most represented in the Highlands of Ahaggar and Tibesh, as well as in the north of the desert.
Among the plants can be called the following:
Fern
Ficus
Cypress
Xerophytes
Cereal
Acacia
Zizifus
Cacti
Boxthorn
Feather grass
Date palm
Animals in the Sahara desert
The animal world is represented by mammals, birds and various insects. Among them in the sugar there are carcasses and hamsters, gerbils and antelopes, a grivist ram and miniature chanterelles, jackals and mongoose, velvet cats and camels.
Jerboa
Hamster
Gerbil
Antelope
Grivistan ram
Miniature foxes
Jackal
Mongoose
Velvet cats
Camel
There are lizards and snakes: Varana, Agams, Horned Vipers, Sandy Ephes.
Varan
Agam
Horned viper
Sandy efa
Sahara desert is a special world where an extraarid climate has formed. Here is the hottest place on the planet, but life is here. These are animals, birds, insects, plants and nomadic peoples.
The location of the desert
There is a sugar desert in North Africa. It takes spaces from the western part of the continent to the eastern for 4.8 thousand. kilometers, and from north to south 0.8-1.2 thousand. kilometers. The total Sahara area is approximately 8.6 million. square kilometers. From different parts of the world, the desert borders on such objects:
Most of the territory of the Sahara is occupied by wild and uninhabited open spaces, where you can sometimes find nomads. The desert is separated between states such as Egypt and Niger, Algeria and Sudan, Chad and Western Sahara, Libya and Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania.
Sugar desert map
Relief
In fact, only a quarter of sugar occupies sand, and the rest of the territory is occupied by stone structures and mountains of volcanic origin. In general, such objects can be distinguished in the desert:
The largest clusters of sand in such sandy seas as Igidi and the Great East Erg, tenener and ideas-Marzuk, Shesh and Aubari, Big West Erg and Erg-Shebby. There are also different forms of dunes and margins. In places there is a phenomenon of mobile, as well as singing sands.
The relief of the desert
If you talk more about the relief, sand and the origin of the desert, then scientists argue that the sugar was previously the oceanic bottom. There is even a white desert in which white rocks are the remains of various microorganisms of antiquity, and during excavations, paleontologists find skeletons of various animals living millions of years ago.
Now the sands cover some parts of the desert, and their depth reaches 200 meters in places. Sand is constantly tolerated by winds, forming new forms of relief. Under the dunes and velvens of sand are deposits of different stone rocks and minerals. When people discovered oil and natural gas deposits, they began to be mined here, although it is more difficult than in other places of the planet.
Sahara water resources
The main source of the Sahara desert is the Nile and Niger rivers, as well as Lake Chad. The rivers originated outside the desert, they feed on surface and underground waters. The main tributaries of the Nile are white and blue Nile, which merge in the southeastern part of the desert. Niger flows in the southwest of the Sahara, in the delta of which there are several lakes. There are Vadi and streams in the north, which are formed after strong rainfalls, and also flow out from mountain arrays. Inside the desert itself there is a Vadi network, which was formed in antiquity. It is worth noting that under the sands of sugar there are underground waters that feed some water bodies. They are used for irrigation systems.
River Nile
Interesting facts about sugar
Among the interesting facts about the sugar, it should be noted that it is not completely deserted. More than 500 types of flora and several hundred types of fauna are found here. The variety of animal and plant world forms a special ecosystem on the planet.
There are sources of artesian water in the bowels of the Earth under the sandy seas of deserts. One of the interesting phenomena is that the territory of the Sahara is changing all the time. Pictures from satellites show that the area of the desert is increasing or decreasing. If earlier sugar was savannah, now a desert, it is very interesting what for several thousand years they will do with it and what this ecosystem will turn into.
