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"Due to lack of adequate rainfall, the desert is a dry piece of land with little or no vegetation. They are mostly found mainly in rain shadow areas which are leeward of a mountain range with respect to the wind direction. In deserts, the atmospheric air is very dry, and the daytime temperature is high."

Reference:
https://schooltutoring.com/help/earth-sciences-types-of-landforms/

Vocabulary
subtropical desert | Very hot and dry in the summer and cooler but still dry in the winter.
semiarid desert | Cooler than hot and dry deserts
coastal desert | Deserts found on coasts, where the land meets the ocean
polar desert | region with a mean temperature during the warmest month of less than 10 degrees Celsius and annual precipitation of no more than 250 millimeters.

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Picture from:
https://www.youngpioneertours.com/gobi-desert-facts/

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Picture from:
https://www.thoughtco.com/sahara-desert-overview-1435189

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Picture from
https://worldexpeditions.com/Blog/namib-desert-discover-namibia

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Picture from https://www.colorado.edu/today/2017/08/07/tracking-decade-long-changes-antarctic-polar-desert

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Features:
* Oldest desert in the world
*  Hard rock bottom
* Steep canyons
* Shifting sand dunes
* Rugged mountains
* Animal life: Baboon, Leopard, Cheetah, Brown and Spotted Hyena, Klipspringer, Springbok, Steenbok, Cape and Bat Eared Fox, Hartmann's Zebra
* Known for the plant Welwitschia mirabilis

Resource used: https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/at1315#:~:text=This%20extremely%20arid%20ecoregion%20comprises,bisected%20by%20several%20dry%20riverbeds.

Formed:
* The Namib Desert was formed through years of erosion.
* The eroded rock becomes sand and is carried to the Atlantic Ocean as sediment.
* at least 55 million years old

Resource used: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/desert-created-water/student/#:~:text=Hydrosphere%3A%20According%20to%20the%20video,the%20Atlantic%20Ocean%20as%20sediment.

Reason: I choose the Namib Desert because it is the oldest desert in the world. I thought it was interesting that this desert was created through centuries of erosion.

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Features:
* Located in: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Eritrea, Chad
* Animal life: Saharan Cheetah, Fennec Fox, Dorcas Gazelle, Addax Antelope, Red-Necked Ostrich, and African Wild Dog.
* Third largest desert in the world
*  Alternates between a savanna grassland and desert every 20,000 years.
* Plantlife: olive, cypress, and mastic trees.
* Subtropical
* Surface Area: 3,600,000 sq mi (9,200,000 sq km)

Resource used:
https://eros.usgs.gov/westafrica/case-study/landscapes-sahara-desert

Formed:
* Replacement of the Tethys Sea with the Arabian Peninsula around 7 to 11 million years ago. Replacing water with land, which reflects less sunlight, altered the region's precipitation patterns which caused the area to dry out over time.

Resource:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/sahara-millions-years-older-thought-180952735/

Reason:
* I choose the Sahara Desert because I thought the formation process of the desert was very interesting.

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Features:
* Located in Asia- Mongolia & China
* Land is firm and rocky
* Rocky terrain
* sparse vegetation due to lack of rainfall
* Animal life: jerboa, Bactrian camels, goitered gazelles, Gobi brown bears, wild mountain sheep, Siberian ibex
* Annual rainfall is around 7 inches
* Winter temperatures: -38 c or -36.4 f
* Summer temperatures: +42 c or 107.6 f
* Rainshadow desert
* Surface Area: 500,000 sq mi (1,295,000 sq km)

Resource used:
https://www.desertusa.com/du_gobi.html#:~:text=Across%20its%20span%2C%20the%20Gobi,persistent%20windstorms%20or%20heavy%20erosion.

Formed:
* The Gobi Desert has been formed due to persistent windstorms or heavy erosion.
* Once was the bottom of the sea.
* The Gobi Desert is about 66 million years old and was formed in ~2.6 Ma

Resource used:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825218307153#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%20the%20modern,westerly%20circulation%2C%20forced%20by%20global

Reason: I choose the Gobi Desert because it is the oldest and largest desert in Asia. I also thought it was very interesting that his specific desert is so large.

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Features:
* Know for old temperatures
* Lack of rainfall
* Abundance of ice sheets
* Animal Life: Arctic Fox, Arctic Wolf, Polar Bear, Caribou, Snowy Owl, and Moose
* Surface Area: 5,400,000 sq mi (13,985,935 sq km)
* Located in: Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland
*Type: Polar desert

Resource used:
https://geojango.com/blogs/explore-your-world/largest-deserts-in-the-world

Formed:
* Polar deserts are formed when an area has less than approximately 10 inches of rainfall or precipitation each year and the average temperature during the warmest period of the year is less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Resource used:
https://geojango.com/blogs/explore-your-world/largest-deserts-in-the-world

Reason: I have lived in Texas my whole life so I am used to the hot and dry weather. I have always been intrigued by polar deserts since I live in the opposite environment.

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Chihuahuan Desert- North America (Part in MX)

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Chihuahuan Desert- North America (Part in MX)

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Features:
* Largest desert in North America
* Cold temperatures in winters and extremely hot temperatures in the summers.
* Less than 10 inches of rainfall per year- rain occurs mostly in the summer months.
* Limestone & Calcareous soils
* Biological diversity is low
* Prickly-Pear Cactus is the most abundant plant in the environment

Source Used-
https://www.desertusa.com/chihuahuan-desert.html

Formed:
* The desert was formed by long periods of uplifting and faulting.
*pulling apart of continental drift
* Approximately 8,000 years old

Source Used-
https://www.nps.gov/im/chdn/ecoregion.htm

Reason: I choose this desert because it is the largest desert in North America. I also choose this desert because I love catci and this desert is best known for the prickly-pear cactus.

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Chihuahuan Desert - the largest desert in North America covering more than 200,000 square miles -- Most of it lies south of the international border.