The region, which spans 54,000 square miles in northern Chile and southern Peru, gets less than 0.01cm of annual rainfall. Indeed, some areas of the desert have not seen rain in almost 400 years! This region, which is sandwiched between two major mountain systems (the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range), averages an elevation of 7,900 feet.
From eastern Pakistan to northern India, this desert extends. Around 85 percent of the desert is in India, the majority of it in the country's biggest state, Rajasthan. Additionally, the Thar Desert is the world's most densely inhabited desert. The Thar Desert is home to around 40% of Rajasthan's population. Desert safaris in the vicinity of Jaisalmer are a well-known tourist attraction.
The White Desert National Park, located north of Farafra, Egypt, is a stunning demonstration of what nature can achieve. The region is characterized by varied colors of white sand, from dazzling white to creamy white, as well as chalk rock formations, some of which resemble enormous mushrooms, carved out over time by the wind. When touring this territory, certain paths must be followed since the area is protected, and rightly so.
Around 25% of the Sahara is covered by sand sheets and dunes. The major varieties of dunes include tied dunes, which develop under the shadow of hills or other impediments; parabolic blowout dunes; crescent-shaped barchans and transverse dunes; longitudinal seifs; and the huge, complicated shapes associated with sand seas. Numerous pyramidal dunes in the Sahara reach approximately 500 feet in height, while draa, the steep sand ridges that dominate the ergs, are believed to exceed 1,000 feet in height. A peculiar characteristic of desert sands is their âsingingâ or booming. Numerous suggestions, including those based on the piezoelectric property of crystalline quartz, have been suggested to explain the phenomena, but the enigma remains unresolved.
