DESERTS AND WINDS

GEOLOGY LESSON 11
Desert Features

Streams.

Because of the dry conditions, most deserts do not have streams or rivers that run all year long.
Streams that flow intermittently as a result of periods of sudden rainfall are called ephemeral
streams. Exceptions are the Colorado River in the southwestern United States and the Nile
River in Egypt, which originate in mountainous regions andhave enough stream flow to cross
desert areas.

Deserts often exhibit an interior drainage pattern where streams empty into landlockedbasins.
The basins become temporary sources of water, and evaporation can precipitate salt beds and
other evaporitic minerals.

Flash floods.

Most desert rainfall comes from short, violent thunderstorms. The rain is so abundant that it
cannot soak into the hard ground or be controlled by the narrow stream channels.Rain (as
sheetwash) flows rapidly over the land, creating flash floods in the stream beds that can be very
destructive in populated areas. The lack of vegetation allows severe erosion, which carves new
scarps and gullies; the water can become so choked with sediment it becomes a mudflow. The
rapid downcutting by floodwaters produces narrow gorges with steep walls and gravel bottoms
called arroyos or dry washes (wadis in Arabia and North Africa, dongas in South America,
and nullahs in India).

Basin and Range topography.

Some deserts, such as those in the American southwest, display Basin and Range
topography—a series of steep mountain ranges separated by broad valleys. The mountain
ranges cause a series of rain shadows that create the desert climate. Most of the rainfall in the
mountains carries rock debris and sediment out to the alluvial fan that forms at the mouth of a
canyon. If the water runs out farther into the center of the valley,it forms a playa lake. Typically
shallow and muddy from clay, it evaporates quickly, leaving a flat, hard, dried clay surface that
is broken by desiccation cracks. If the water carries dissolved salts, salt flats will result.

Eventually alluvial fans at the front of a mountain range may join to form a bajada, orrolling
surface of sediment and gravel. Between the bajada and the range front is
the pediment, a low‐angle erosion surface at the foot of the mountain range that is typically
covered by up to 30 meters (100 feet) of sediment. Isolated bedrock remnantsof the former
mountain front called inselbergs may project abruptly through the pediment cover as rocky hills.
 DESERTS AND WINDS
Plateaus, mesas, and buttes.

Hills underlain by resistant rock such as sandstone, limestone, or volcanic lava are called
plateaus. Plateaus are edged by steep‐sided scarps and gullies. As weatheringand erosion cut
back a plateau's slopes, remnant flat‐topped towers or columns
called mesas may be left behind. The continued erosion of a mesa results in a similar but
narrower landform called a butte. (The plateau‐mesa‐butte sequence is an exampleof parallel
retreat.) Although most common in desert climates, these landforms are morea function of rock
structure than climate.

The Effects of Wind

Bed load and suspended load.

Winds in the desert are often extreme and unrestricted by trees and vegetation. Wind can be an
effective erosion and transportation agent if it is strong and blows across fine‐ grained sediment
such as sand, silt, and clay. A wind's bed load consists of the heaviergrains (usually sand) that
hop and skip along the ground by saltation. These rarely rise more than 1 meter (3 feet) into the
air as they are transported. The suspended load is the finer‐grained clay and silt fraction that is
actually carried long distances in the wind.

Wind velocity.

The velocity of wind is a result of air pressure differences due to heating and cooling. Desert
winds are the result of temperatures that commonly fluctuate from 7 degrees centigrade at night to
43 degrees centigrade or more during the day (45−110 degreesFahrenheit) and can travel at
speeds up to 70 miles per hour.

Dust storms.

Depending on the amount of fine‐grained material that is available and the speed of thewind,
dust storms that blot out the sun can result. Particles can be carried thousands of feet upward
into the atmosphere and for hundreds of miles laterally. Dust storms stripped the fertile soil
from the overfarmed and drought‐stricken fields of the “Dust Bowl” in the United States in the
1930s. A small but regular component of land‐derived sediment is deposited in the ocean.
Volcanic ash from famous eruptions such as Krakatoa was carried around the world by winds
for two years. Abrasive windblown sand carves rocks and boulders into unusual shapes called
ventifacts, which have flat,wind‐abraded surfaces.

Deflation.

Deflation is the removal of sediment from a land surface by wind. It can lower thesurface of
land significantly by forming a bowl‐like depression called
a blowout. Blowouts can be over 60 kilometers in diameter and over 40 meters deep.Another
result of deflation is thought to be desert pavement, a large surface of the
desert floor that is covered by pebbles and stones that resemble rounded paving stones. Some
geologists believe that the wind removes the fine‐grained material from the surface until only
coarser material remains; others suggest that the pebbles move up through the finegrained
sediment by thermal expansion and contraction (much like frost heaving). Desert pavement is
likely the result of a combination of both processes.

Silt and clay that is deposited by wind is called loess. Typically very porous, it forms downwind
from the source and blankets hills or accumulates in depressions. It is typically cemented by
calcite. Loess can reach thicknesses of 100 meters (300 feet). The fertile soils of the midwestern
and Pacific northwestern United States include loess.

Sand dunes.

Sinuous heaps of unconsolidated sand called sand dunes are the classic feature of the great
deserts of the world. Dunes are deposited by winds in desert regions or alongsandy coastlines
and beaches. Dune material varies in composition and includes sand‐ size grains of quartz,
feldspar, calcite, gypsum, and rock fragments that are well sortedand well rounded.

A dune's shape is constantly changing according to the wind direction. The steeper, downwind
slope is called the slip face. The loose sand maintains angles up to about 35 degrees on the slip
face, creating cross‐bedded layers. Dunes migrate in the direction ofthe prevailing winds about 12
meters (40 feet) per year, a result of the wind continually eroding the gentle slope and
redepositing the sand on the slip face. The surface is typically marked by a series of sand ripples.

Figure illustrates various sand dunes in planar (flat) view from above. One of the largestand
most dramatic dunes is the longitudinal dune, or seif. A large ridge of sand that parallels the
wind direction, it can be over 100 meters high and over 100 kilometers long. Barchan dunes
are widely separated, crescent‐shaped dunes that form in areas of sparse sand. Often found on
bedrock, the ends of the crescents point
downwind. Transverse dunes are a series of long ridges that form perpendicular to the wind.
They typically occur in coastal areas. A barchanoid dune, an intermediate varietybetween
barchan and transverse dunes, is formed of scalloped rows of sand perpendicular to the wind. It
resembles a series of side‐by‐side barchan dunes.
A parabolic dune usually forms around a blowout in vegetated areas—the dune is deeply
curved and the tips point into the wind. Star dunes are isolated hills of sand formed by variable
winds in the Sahara and Arabian Deserts. The bases of these dunesresemble multipointed stars.
Figure 1: Types of Dunes

Distribution and Causes of Deserts

Areas that receive less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of rain annually are
called deserts. Deserts are dry with sparse vegetation. Landforms tend to have angular features
because the lack of rain results in minimal chemical weathering, and flash floods create steep‐
walled scarps and gullies. There are few plants to protect the soil from the wind, so the soil is
blown away to expose the rocky surface. Even in such a dryclimate, most of the landforms are
carved by the rare periods of heavy rainfall that resultin flash floods, erosion, and sediment
deposition.

Hot air rises at the equator, where the land receives the greatest amount of the sun's radiation.
Most of the world's deserts are located near 30 degrees north latitude and 30degrees south
latitude, where the heated equatorial air begins to descend. The descending air is dense and begins
to warm again, evaporating large amounts of waterfrom the land surface. The resulting climate is
very dry.

Other deserts are located in the rain shadows of mountain ranges. As moist air passesover a
mountain range, it expands and cools, precipitating most of its moisture as it rises. As it sweeps
down the other side of the mountain range, it warms and compresses, causing high evaporation
rates and shedding little rain. Many of the deserts in the southwestern United States are the
result of rain shadows.
A few deserts, such as the Gobi Desert in China, are simply a result of being located farfrom the
ocean, from which most atmospheric moisture is drawn. The moisture is precipitated before it can
reach these interior areas.

Deserts can form even on tropical coasts beside cold ocean currents, such as the westcoast of
South America. The currents cool the air, which then rises and warms as it moves over land,
drawing up moisture that is later precipitated as the air moves fartherinland.