North American Desert

Physiography

Differences in latitude, elevation, climate, topography, vegetation, soil, and human use have allowed the North American Desert to be subdivided into regions of cold mid-latitude and hot mid-latitude desert. The continent’s major deserts are associated with the intermontane Basin and Range Province of the western United States, northern Mexico, and the Colorado Plateau region of northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah.

Classified as a cold mid-latitude desert is the Great Basin Desert, which lies in the physiographic Great Basin that covers nearly all of Nevada, western Utah, and portions of surrounding states. It constitutes the largest section of the Basin and Range Province and includes the Great Sandy Desert of southeastern Oregon, the Snake River Plains of southern Idaho, the volcanic Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada, and the Great Salt Lake Desert of western Utah. Although they are not usually assigned to the physiographic Great Basin, the Red Desert of southern Wyoming and the Painted Desert of northern Arizona are sometimes considered as extensions of the Great Basin Desert.

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To the south the Great Basin Desert merges with the Mojave (Mohave) Desert and the hotter mid-latitude deserts. In California near the undefined Great Basin–Mojave border are the sun-scorched landscapes of Death Valley; the valley’s maximum depth of 282 feet (86 metres) below sea level is the continent’s lowest point. The Mojave merges in the southeast with the Sonoran Desert, which covers much of Baja California and runs along the Gulf of California coast to the Mexican state of Sonora. Its subdivisions include the Yuma and Colorado deserts. To the east lies the huge Chihuahuan Desert, extending from southern New Mexico (where the dazzling gypsum dunes of White Sands National Monument are found) and western Texas to the highlands of central Mexico.

Geology

Most of the North American Desert—and all the salty-lake remnants—occupies areas covered by geologically recent Quaternary deposits (i.e., those less than 2.6 million years old) and mountains thrust up and folded by movements in the Paleogene and Neogene periods (about 65 to 2.6 million years ago), with some plains and plateaus consisting of sediments up to 225 million years old.

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Through long periods of erosion, the landforms produced from these rocks have become characteristically sharp and angular (except in the heavily eroded badlands regions) and contain, in their harsh but breathtaking beauty, some of North America’s finest scenery. The action of wind, temperature changes, ephemeral streams, and floods, coupled with the general lack of dense vegetation and deep soils, have all been involved in this molding process. The individual deserts are characterized by plateaus, gorges, ravines, and alluvial fans washed out at the feet of mountains. Deserts of the bolson type contain playas (dried-up lake remnants) and mud and salt lakes and flats. Deserts of the hammada type are characterized by extensive rocky surfaces with boulder or gravel coverings, sometimes blackened and wind-scoured, with magnificent buttes, mesas, and other isolated mountain remnants rising high above the flat landscape. Stretches of shifting sands known as ergs—the extensive Algodones Dunes of the Colorado-Yuma desert are a notable example—are found at lower elevations, with the shallow troughs of arroyos carrying intermittent streams from surrounding uplands to be lost in the sands.

Soils

The soils of the North American Desert have origins similar to those of more humid regions, but they are less enriched by organisms and less leached of constituents. On older surfaces most belong to the dry-soil order called aridisols, but local variations occur, reflecting differing salt and mineral composition and presence or absence of organic matter. On younger eroded surfaces or those infilled with alluvial (riverine) sediment, weakly developed entisols occur. With proper management, the more fertile soils can be productive.

Climate

Regardless of the latitude, longitude, and elevation, a harsh and extreme temperature regime exists in the North American Desert, with a high frequency of cloudless days and intense solar radiation, infrequent and intense storms, winds carrying dust and sand, low relative humidity, and rapid evaporation or sublimation of snow. Regionally specific climatic zones exist, ranging from temperate in the Great Basin and Painted Desert to subtropical in the western Sonoran and northern Chihuahuan sections to tropical in the Sonoran gulf coast. Average annual temperatures range from approximately 49° F (9° C) in the northern deserts (Black Rock) to 73° F (23° C) in the Sonoran Desert and 77° F (25° C) at the bottom of Death Valley. Average annual rainfall varies from 6 to 12 inches (150 to 300 millimetres) in the Great Basin Desert, 2 to 6 inches in the Mojave Desert (a low of 2 inches in Death Valley), 10 to 11 inches in the Red and Painted deserts, 8 to 18 inches in the Sonoran Desert, and 12 to 14 inches in parts of the Chihuahuan Desert. Precipitation may be seasonal and characteristically is erratic, scattered, or intense. Snowfall of 12 to 24 inches occurs in most of the northern deserts, decreasing to only a trace in the Sonoran Desert. Winds are directional, with speeds averaging seven to nine miles per hour. Average relative humidities are generally less than 50 percent (20 percent for Death Valley), but 10 percent or less is not uncommon. The growing season varies from 90 to 140 days in the northern deserts to more than 300 days along the Sonoran gulf coast and in the Baja Peninsula.

Plant life

In the North American Desert, available moisture is the most critical factor for life. Local environmental factors also are significant in determining the nature of desert plant communities and their dependent animal life. Most desert plants are xerophytes (plants adapted to arid conditions) or phreatophytes (deep-rooted plants that are dependent on a permanent water supply and survive by tapping groundwater). Sagebrush and saltbush characterize the Great Basin region, with Joshua trees, creosote bush, and burroweed typical of the Mojave. The Sonoran Desert has a thorn scrub of shrubs (mesquite, paloverde, ironwood, burrobush, smoke tree, and cat’s claw) and a great variety of moisture-preserving succulents, such as cacti. The Arizona Upland Desert is noted for the giant saguaro and barrel cacti, while the Chihuahuan Desert is characterized, notably in its eastern part, by a ground cover of open mesquite, a scattering of larger trees, and shrubby undergrowth, including the yucca, prickly pear, agave, and other varieties of cactus. Plant life and associated algae, lichens, mosses, and insects become more complex as temperature and moisture conditions improve.

Animal life

The North American Desert harbours an abundant variety of insects, including grasshoppers that occasionally reach destructive proportions. Lizards, snakes, and other reptiles, the most conspicuous animals, are dependent on plant fluids or devoured animals for moisture. Likewise, desert birds are largely independent of water sources (and are seen almost everywhere), as they derive their moisture from the insects and spiders that they eat. Rodents (including mice, rats, and squirrels), rabbits, and bats are the most numerous mammals; essentially nocturnal, they remain underground during the heat of the day and, like the birds and reptiles, obtain moisture from their food. Higher up in the food chain are such carnivores as coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and skunks; and the largest desert mammal, found at higher elevations, is the bighorn sheep. Protective coloration, often remarkably complex, is an important feature of desert life.