Sahara is on the mainland. What countries does the Sahara Desert cover? Have a nice trip and lasting impressions
Borders
Of course, a desert of this size could not occupy the territory of one or two African countries. It covers Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia and Chad.
From the west, the Sahara is washed by the Atlantic Ocean, from the north it is bounded by the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, and from the east by the Red Sea. The southern border of the desert is defined by a zone of sedentary ancient sand dunes at 16° N, to the south of which is the Sahel, a transition region to the Sudanese savannah.
Regions
It is difficult to attribute the Sahara to any specific type of desert, although the sandy-rocky type predominates here. It includes the following regions: Tenere, Greater Eastern Erg, Greater Western Erg, Tanezruft, Hamada el-Hamra, Erg Igidi, Erg Shesh, Arabian, Algerian, Libyan, Nubian deserts, Talaq desert.
Climate
The climate of the Sahara is unique and is determined by its location in the zone of high-altitude anticyclones, downdrafts of air and dry trade winds of the northern hemisphere. It rarely rains in the desert, and the air is dry and hot. The Sahara sky is cloudless, but it will not surprise travelers with its blue transparency, since there is always the finest dust in the air. Intense solar exposure and evaporation during the day gives way to strong radiation at night. First, the sand heats up to 70° C, radiates heat from the rocks, and in the evening the surface of the Sahara cools much faster than the air. The average July temperature is 35°.
High temperatures, with their sharp fluctuations, and very dry air make being in the desert very difficult. Only from December to February does the “Saharan winter” begin - a period with relatively cool weather. During winter, temperatures in Northern Sahara can drop below 0° at night, although during the day they rise to 25°. Sometimes it even snows here.
Desert nature
Bedouin walks along the dunesDespite the fact that the desert is usually represented as a continuous layer of hot sand that forms dunes, the Sahara has a slightly different topography. In the center of the desert there are mountain ranges more than 3 km high, but on the outskirts there are pebble, rocky, clayey and sandy deserts, in which there is practically no vegetation of any kind. It is there that nomads live, driving herds of camels across sparse pastures.
OasisThe vegetation of the Sahara consists of bushes, grasses and trees in the highlands and oases located along river beds. Some plants have fully adapted to the harsh climate and grow within 3 days after rain, and then sow seeds for 2 weeks. At the same time, only a small part of the desert is fertile - these areas take moisture from underground rivers.
The well-known dromedary camels, some of which were domesticated by nomads, still live in small herds, feeding on cactus spines and parts of other desert plants. But these are not the only ungulates that live in the desert. Pronghorn Addax, Maned Ram, Dorcas gazelle and Oryx antelope, whose curved horns are almost as long as their body, have also perfectly adapted to survive in such difficult conditions. The light color of their coat allows them not only to escape the heat during the day, but also not to freeze at night.
Several species of rodents, including the gerbil, the Abesse hare, which comes to the surface only at dusk and hides in burrows during the day, and the jerboa, which has surprisingly long legs that allow it to move with huge leaps like a kangaroo.
The Sahara Desert is also home to predators, the largest of which is the fennec fox, a small fox with wide ears. Also inhabited there are sand cats, horned vipers and rattlers, leaving winding tracks on the surface of the sand, and many other species of animals.
Video: From Casablanca to the Sahara
Sahara in cinema
The mesmerizing landscapes of the Sahara never cease to attract filmmakers. Many films were shot on the territory of Tunisia, and the creators of two famous films left a memory of themselves among the sands. The planet Tatooine was not actually lost in the distances of space, but was located in the Sahara. There is an entire “extraterrestrial” village from the latest Star Wars series located here. At the end of filming, the “aliens” left their homes, and now the quaint dwellings and the gas station for interplanetary aircraft are at the disposal of rare tourists. Next to Tatooine, the white Arabian house from The English Patient is still visible. You can only get here by jeep and with an experienced guide, because you have to drive off-road, in the complete absence of signs and landmarks. Fans of “The English Patient” need to hurry a little more and the merciless dune will finally bury this unusual attraction under the sand.
The Sahara is the largest sand desert on Earth. Its name comes from the Arabic word “sakhra”, which in translation means “desert” (although some sources claim that it is translated from ancient Arabic as “red-brown”). The Sahara Desert is located in the northern part of the African continent and occupies almost a third of its entire territory - more than 9 million square meters. kilometers. The western outskirts of this geographical giant are washed by the Atlantic Ocean, and the eastern ones by the waters of the Red Sea.
According to scientists, this part became a desert in its current form from a geographical point of view quite recently - only about four thousand years ago. Before this, a significant area of it was characterized by a favorable climate and fertile soils, thanks to which many ancient civilizations existed in this territory, leaving their descendants with a rich historical and cultural heritage. The most famous of these is Ancient Egypt.
What caused the emergence of the Sahara
The opinions of climatologists, geographers and geophysicists on this matter are ambiguous. Some people “blame” this on the change in the angle of the earth’s axis, while others blame it on the active and reckless “development” activities of representatives of the above-mentioned civilizations.
When many people hear the word “Sahara,” they think of barren and deserted expanses of sandy waves, above which mirages appear from time to time in the hot air—almost everyone has heard about this phenomenon, although few have actually seen them. However, sands make up only about 25% of the Sahara's area; the rest of the space is occupied by rocks and mountains of volcanic origin.
In territorial terms, the Sahara is a conglomerate of deserts that differ greatly in soil characteristics. These include:
- Western Sahara, which combines both lowlands and mountain plains.
- Ahaggar Highlands, located in the south. Its highest point is Mount Takhat (2918 m above sea level). In winter, you can even see snow on its top.
- The Tibesti Plateau is the central part of the Sahara Desert. It covers the south and northern part. Above it rises the Emmi-Kusi volcano, whose height is about three and a half kilometers. Here, winter snowfalls are a fairly systematic phenomenon.
- Tenere is a sandy “sea” that occupies the northern and western part of Chad. Its area is approximately 400 sq. km.
- The Libyan desert is the “pole of heat” in the Sahara.
Climate of the Sahara
The climate and temperature regime of most of the Sahara can hardly be considered favorable. Its characteristics depend on which of the two zones - subtropical or tropical - we are talking about. In the first (northern) summer period is characterized by extremely high temperatures (+58ºС), while winters are not African-like cold (in the mountains frosts reach –18ºС). Southern tropical winters can be called such only conditionally.
The lowest temperature this time of year here is +10ºС. In the mountains there is little rain, but it is quite regular. And in the lowlands of the Sahara, near the Atlantic coast, thunderstorms and fogs occur. The difference between day and night temperatures in the Sahara reaches up to twenty degrees: from +35ºС during the day to +15ºС at night.
The winds blowing over the Sahara have a great influence on climatic factors. The movement of air masses usually goes from north to east. The penetration of moist air deep into the Sahara is prevented by the Atlas mountain range.
Water sources
The main sources of water in the Sahara Desert are the Nile River (in the eastern part), the Niger River (in the southwest) and Lake Chad (in the south).
After rare but powerful downpours, streams of rainwater - wadis - appear in the mountains of the Sahara. They dry out quickly, but some of them, flowing down, accumulate and are stored under a layer of sand. It is thanks to such hidden water “lenses” that oases are formed in the desert.
Also, the water resources of the Sahara include relict lakes - the remains of the seas that occupied this territory millions of years ago. Most of them are more like salt marshes, but there are also freshwater ones.
Flora and fauna of the Sahara Desert
Considering the above factors, it is not surprising that the flora and fauna of the desert is quite poor. All types of plants belong to drought-resistant forms and are concentrated in those places where there is at least sometimes water. Animals of the Sahara also live there - mostly snakes and lizards, but there are also representatives of mammals: hyena, fox, mongoose.
Deserts have always attracted the attention of researchers and travelers. These unique natural areas excite our imagination and frighten us with their mystery. The most famous desert in the world is the Sahara. In this article we will tell you how the Sahara Desert differs from other arid places on our planet and why it is interesting to modern science.
Geography of the Sahara Desert
The Sahara Desert is located in the northern part of the African continent and occupies almost 30% of the total area of Africa, which is comparable to the territory of Brazil. The area of the Sahara is about 8.5 million square kilometers, which is why this desert is called the “Great Sahara”. The Sahara is second only to the Arctic desert in size, but is the largest hot desert in the world. In the depths of the desert there is a huge amount of oil and natural gas. Especially in the territory belonging to Algeria and Libya. In addition, Algeria and Mauritania have large reserves of iron ore, and Morocco has large quantities of phosphates.
The exact age of the desert is unknown. There are different versions on this matter. Initially it was believed that it was about 6 thousand years old. Now scientists agree that the Sahara was formed approximately 3.5 thousand years ago.
The Sahara Desert is washed by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the Mediterranean Sea in the north, and the Red Sea in the east. The Niger River flows in the south of the desert.
The Sahara is located on the territory of 11 countries: Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Chad, Morocco, Eritrea, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Sudan. Sometimes the disputed territory of Western Sahara is added to this list.
Sahara desert map
Relief of the Sahara Desert
Most of the Sahara is sandy, poor in organic matter, expanses of flat pebble, clay and rocky plains. But here you can also find mountain ranges, plateaus, shallow basins, large oasis depressions and grasslands, which makes the relief of the Sahara quite atypical and varied. The most hilly part of the desert is its central region. It is here that the highest point of the Sahara is located - the Emi-Kousi volcano, 3,500 m high, and Mount Takhat, 3,003 m.
25% of the desert surface (almost 2.5 million km2) is occupied by wadis - sun-dried river beds and sand dunes. Dunes are found mainly in the north central region, in Algeria and Libya, where they are moved by strong winds. The wind moves the sand up the back slope of the dunes until it reaches the crest, whereupon it falls under the influence of gravity, cascading down the sliding surface. The wind builds dunes in the form of waves along its path. The Sahara dunes come in different shapes: round, star-shaped, crescent-shaped, transverse and pyramidal (up to 300 m high).
Sand dunes of the Sahara.
Sahara desert climate
The climate of the Sahara is one of the harshest in the world. There is little precipitation, strong winds blow, and wide fluctuations in air temperature occur daily. The Sahara Desert is located in subtropical latitudes, with prevailing areas of high atmospheric pressure that prevent the flow of moist air from the ocean.
There are two main climatic zones in the Sahara: in the north there are subtropics, and in the south there are dry tropics. The northern part of the desert is the driest, and the western part is the wettest. During the rainy season, only 2 cm of precipitation falls in the north. The rest of the desert can receive up to 9.9 cm of precipitation in a whole year.
The prevailing wind blows from the northeast towards the equator, which explains the aridity of the desert. The Sahara experiences very strong winds, up to 100 km per hour. They are called Siroko. Such winds can cause sandstorms, which can be seen even from space.
In the summer in the Sahara, you can safely set temperature records, as the air heats up to +60 degrees Celsius, and the sand up to +80 degrees Celsius. On September 13, 1922, in the Libyan city of Al-Azizia, the maximum air temperature in the Sahara was recorded - 57.7 degrees Celsius. The average annual temperature in the Sahara is 30 degrees Celsius. Since the air contains little moisture to retain heat, there are large differences between day and night temperatures - up to 40 degrees Celsius.
In winter, the northern part of the desert can experience freezing temperatures. in recent years it has ceased to be a rare occurrence.
Water in the Sahara Desert
The Sahara Desert has only two permanent rivers and a few lakes, but it has significant underground reservoirs and aquifers.
The permanent rivers are the Nile and Niger. The Nile rises in central Africa, south of the Sahara, and flows north through Sudan and Egypt before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The Niger flows in western Africa, southwest of the Sahara, and continues northeast to Mali, deep into the desert, through Nigeria, emptying into the Gulf of Guinea.
There are about 20 lakes in the Sahara and only one of them contains drinking water. This is a shallow Lake Chad, which constantly expands and contracts. Lake Chad is located on the territory of the state of the same name, on the southernmost edge of the Sahara. In other lakes the water is very salty and not suitable for human consumption.
An oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert
Saharan reservoirs often lie just below dry river beds and river valleys called "wadis". Aquifers sometimes release some of their reserves to the surface. This is how oases arise. They can usually be found at the lower points of relief depressions. For many desert residents, oases are the only source of life in the middle of a hot sandy ocean.
Population of the Sahara
The Sahara is home to just over two million people. These are people who live in permanent communities near water sources, as well as nomadic tribes. Due to climate change, the number of people and many species of Saharan flora and fauna has declined sharply over the past decade.
Animals and plants of the Sahara Desert
Quite poor and monotonous. Due to the specific climate, only 500 plant species are counted in this vast region. In particular, these are trees, grasses, thorny bushes, and palm trees adapted to very hot conditions and salty water.
Plants often grow around oases, lakes and on hills. In oases, people practice growing fruits and some vegetables. Along the Atlantic coast there is enough moisture for the growth of lichens, succulents, and shrubs. Tibesti and Jebel Uweinat meet in the highlands. Because temperatures are cooler, plants such as tamarix, myrtle, oleander, acacia and palms can be found in this region.
The Sahara Desert is inhabited by about 4 thousand representatives of the animal world. These are mainly invertebrates, about 15% of them are endemic. Animals of the Sahara are characterized by a nocturnal lifestyle and semi-aquatic habitat. The ponds are inhabited by crocodiles, frogs and crayfish. It is impossible not to mention lizards, scorpions, monitor lizards, chameleons and various reptiles that live on rocky slopes and sand dunes.
Almost 60 species of mammals are found in the Sahara. The most famous among them are the cheetah, the wild dog, some species of foxes (fennec fox, pale fox) and antelope, the spotted hyena and the Ethiopian hedgehog. Some animals are considered long extinct, such as the North African elephant and addax antelope, Saharan oryx, African wild dog and African lion. More than 300 bird species have been spotted in the desert. For example, silver-billed finch and masked amaranth.
The indigenous people of North Africa, the Berbers, raise camels, goats, sheep and donkeys.
The Sahara Desert is an attractive region for hunters. Due to intensive safaris, many animals are classified as vulnerable. For example, the Nubian ibex, which, like other representatives of the fauna, occupies an important place in the ecosystem.
Environmental problems of the Sahara Desert
Unfortunately, anthropogenic factors did not play a positive role here either. Due to the cutting down of trees, already scarce water bodies are catastrophically drying up. Animal grazing has led to the erosion of previously fertile soils. All this adds up to the fact that every year the desert becomes wider by 5-10 square kilometers. Due to the increase in desert area, the Earth's atmosphere is warming up faster, which negatively affects the inhabitants of the African continent and those who live beyond its borders.
Although very little research has been done in the desert region, it is clear that many animals and plants are dying out, although the reasons for this are not fully known.
Positive changes have been observed since 2014, as this year was officially dedicated to the problems of deserts and desertification. Thanks to this, the whole world is thinking about serious environmental problems. Some states have made a wide range of commitments to preserve the Sahara. For example, a reserve was created in Niger, in which measures are being taken to protect and increase the populations of gazelles and antelopes living in the Sahara.
Interesting facts about the Sahara Desert
- Sahrawis are primarily of Berber and/or Arab origin.
- Due to its impressive size, the desert is also called the “Great Sahara”. The word “Sahara” itself means “greatest desert” in Arabic.
- Goats and camels are the most common domestic animals in the Sahara.
- In the desert, on natural rocks, archaeologists have found many rock paintings.
- Modern methods of mapping and measurement show that the desert changes its size from year to year, depending on the amount of precipitation in the region.
- Berbers, as well as Arab nomads, led their camel caravans across the Sahara, trading goods such as cloth, salt, gold and fish.
- Scientists predict that the desert will turn green again in about 15,000 years.
- The Sahara Desert is 70% gravel and 30% sand.
- The Marathon des Sables is held in the Sahara. Daredevils from all over the world can take part in the six-day race. This pleasure is not cheap and requires good physical preparation.
Sahara Desert for tourists
Although the Sahara Desert is strongly associated with an environment unsuitable for life, it is still of considerable tourist interest. You can get there from Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. In other countries there are certain political problems that will make it difficult to stay there.
When going on an unconventional trip, it is extremely important to remember safety measures. Berber guides will play an invaluable role in exploring these vast expanses of sand. Without them, the Sahara Desert can be an extremely dangerous place to live.
Sahara Desert
(North Africa)
A truly endless sea of sun-scorched sand, stone and clay, enlivened only by rare green spots of oases and a single river - this is what the Sahara is. The gigantic scale of this largest desert in the world is simply amazing. Its territory occupies almost eight million square kilometers - it is larger than Australia and only slightly smaller than Brazil. Its hot expanses stretch for five thousand kilometers from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.
Nowhere else on Earth is there such a vast waterless space. There are places in the interior of the Sahara where there is no rain for years. Thus, in the In-Salah oasis, in the heart of the desert, in eleven years, from 1903 to 1913, it rained only once - in 1910, and only eight millimeters of precipitation fell.
These days the Sahara is not so difficult to reach. From the city of Algiers, along a good highway, you can reach the desert in one day. Through the picturesque El Kantara gorge - the “Gateway to the Sahara” - the traveler finds himself in places whose landscape does not at all resemble the expected “sand sea” with golden waves of dunes. To the left and right of the road, which runs along a rocky and clayey plain, rise small rocks, to which the wind and sand have given the intricate outlines of fairy-tale castles and towers.
Sandy deserts - ergs - occupy less than a quarter of the entire territory of the Sahara, the rest is made up of rocky plains, as well as clayey areas cracked by the scorching heat and salt-white depressions, salt marshes, giving rise to deceptive mirages in the unsteady haze of heated air.
In general, the Sahara is a vast tableau, the flat character of which is broken only by the depressions of the Nile and Niger valleys and Lake Chad. On this plain, only in three places do truly high, albeit small in area, mountain ranges rise. These are the Ahaggar and Tibesti highlands and the Darfur plateau, rising more than three kilometers above sea level.
The mountainous, completely dry landscapes of Ahaggar are often compared to lunar landscapes. But under natural rock overhangs, archaeologists discovered an entire Stone Age art gallery here. Cave paintings of ancient people depicted elephants and hippopotamuses, crocodiles and giraffes, rivers with floating boats and people harvesting... All this suggests that the climate of the Sahara was previously more humid, and most of the current desert was once savannah.
Now they are found only on the slopes of the Tibesti highlands and the flat, elevated plains of Darfur, where for a month or two a year, while there is rain, real rivers even flow through the gorges, and abundant springs feed the oases with water all year round.
In the rest of the Sahara, precipitation falls less than two hundred and fifty millimeters per year. Geographers call such areas arid. They are unsuitable for agriculture, and they can only be used to drive herds of sheep and camels in search of scarce food.
Here are the hottest places on our planet. For example, in Libya there are areas where the heat reaches fifty-eight degrees! And in some areas of Ethiopia, even the average annual temperature does not drop below plus thirty-five.
The sun regulates the entire life of the Sahara. Its radiation, taking into account rare cloudiness, low air humidity and lack of vegetation, reaches very high values. Daily temperatures here are characterized by large jumps. The difference between day and night temperatures reaches thirty degrees! Sometimes frosts occur at night in February, and on Ahaggar or Tibesti the temperature can drop to minus eighteen degrees.
Of all the atmospheric phenomena, the most difficult for a traveler to endure in the Sahara are prolonged storms. The desert wind, hot and dry, causes hardship even when it is transparent, but it is even more difficult for travelers when it carries dust or small grains of sand. Dust storms occur more often than sand storms. The Sahara is perhaps the dustiest place on Earth. From a distance, these storms look like fires that quickly engulf everything around, clouds of smoke from which rise high into the sky. With furious force they rush across the plains and mountains, blowing dust from the destroyed rocks on their way.
Storms in the Sahara are extremely powerful. The wind speed sometimes reaches fifty meters per second (remember that thirty meters per second is already a hurricane!). Caravan workers say that sometimes heavy camel saddles are carried away by the wind two hundred meters away, and stones the size of chicken eggs roll on the ground like peas.
Quite often, tornadoes occur when highly heated air from the sun-hot earth rapidly rises, capturing fine dust and carrying it high into the sky. Therefore, such whirlwinds are visible from afar, which, as a rule, allows the rider to save his life by avoiding a meeting with the “genie of the desert” in time, as the Bedouins call a tornado. A gray pillar rises into the air all the way to the clouds. The pilots encountered dust devils sometimes at an altitude of one and a half kilometers. It happens that the wind carries Saharan dust across the Mediterranean Sea to Southern Europe.
On the endless Saharan plains the wind almost always blows. It is estimated that in the desert there are only six windless days per hundred days. The hot winds of the Northern Sahara are especially notorious, capable of destroying the entire harvest in the oasis in a few hours. These winds - sirocco - blow more often at the beginning of summer. In Egypt, this wind is called khamsin (literally "fifty"), since it usually blows for fifty days after the spring equinox. During its almost two-month rampage, window glass that is not covered with shutters becomes frosted - this is how grains of sand carried by the wind scratch it.
And when there is calm in the Sahara and the air is filled with dust, the “dry fog” known to all travelers occurs. In this case, visibility completely disappears, and the sun appears as a dim spot and does not provide a shadow. Even wild animals lose their orientation at such moments. They say that there was a case when gazelles, usually very shy, calmly walked in a caravan during a “dry fog”, walking between people and camels.
Sahara likes to remind herself unexpectedly. It happens that a caravan sets off when there is no sign of bad weather. The air is still clean and calm, but some strange heaviness is already spreading in it. Gradually, the sky on the horizon begins to turn pink, then takes on a purple hue. It is somewhere far away that the wind has picked up and is driving the red sands of the desert towards the caravan. Soon the dim sun barely breaks through the quickly rushing sand clouds. It becomes difficult to breathe, it seems that the sand has replaced the air and filled everything around. Hurricane winds rush at speeds of up to hundreds of kilometers per hour. The sand burns, suffocates, knocks you down. Such a storm sometimes lasts a week, and woe to those whom it finds on the way.
But if the weather in the Sahara is calm and the sky is not covered with dust raised by the wind, it is difficult to find a more beautiful sight than the sunset in the desert. Perhaps only the aurora makes a greater impression on the traveler. Each time the sky in the rays of the setting sun amazes with a new combination of shades - blood red and pink-pearl, imperceptibly merging with soft blue. All this is piled on the horizon in several floors, burns and sparkles, growing into some bizarre, fabulous forms, and then gradually fades away. Then almost instantly an absolutely black night sets in, the darkness of which even the bright southern stars are unable to dispel.
Of course, the most desirable and most picturesque places in the Sahara are oases.
The Algerian oasis of El Ouedde lies in the golden-yellow sands of the Grand Erg Orient. It is connected to the outside world by an asphalt highway, but this is how it appears only on the map. In many places the wide road surface is thoroughly covered with sand. Telegraph poles are buried in a good two-thirds of it, and teams of workers with shovels and brooms are constantly clearing out drifts in one area or another. After all, the wind blows here all year round. And even a weak breeze, tearing off the tops of sandy dune hills, steadily moves sand waves from place to place. When the wind is strong, traffic on desert roads sometimes stops completely, and not for just one day.
Like all oases of the Sahara, El Ouedde is surrounded by palm groves. Date palms are the basis of life for local residents. In other oases, irrigation systems are installed in order to provide them with water, but in El Ouedde the process is simpler. In the dry bed of the river flowing through the oasis, deep funnel holes are dug and palm trees are planted in them. Water always flows under the rus house at a depth of five to six meters, so the roots of palm trees planted in this way easily reach the level of the underground stream and do not require irrigation.
Each crater contains between fifty and one hundred palm trees. The sinkholes are located in rows along the riverbed, and they are all threatened by a common enemy - sand. To prevent the slopes from sliding, the edges of the craters are reinforced with fences made of palm branches, but sand still seeps down. You have to take it out on donkeys or carry it in baskets all year round. In the heat of summer, this hard work can only be done at night, by torchlight or in the glow of the full moon. Water wells are also dug in these same craters. It is enough for drinking and for watering gardens. Camel droppings serve as fertilizer.
Dates and camel milk are the main food of fellah farmers. And the valuable muscat variety of dates is sold and even exported to Europe.
The capital of the Algerian Sahara - the oasis of Ouargla - differs from other oases in that it has... a real lake. This tiny town in the center of the desert has a huge reservoir, by local standards, with an area of four hundred hectares. It was formed from water released from palm plantations after irrigation. Water is always supplied to fields and date groves in excess, otherwise evaporation will lead to the accumulation of salts in the soil. Excess water along with salts is dumped into a depression next to the oasis. This is how artificial lakes arise in the Sahara.
True, most of them are not as large as in Ouargla, and do not withstand the mortal struggle with sand and sun. Most often, these are simply swampy depressions, the surface of which is covered with a dense, transparent, glass-like layer of salt.
But oases in the Sahara are rare, and from one “island of life” to another you have to travel along endless desert roads, overcoming the heat of the sun, hot wind, dust and... the temptation to turn off the road. Such a temptation often arises among travelers both on ancient caravan trails and on modern asphalt highways in these inhospitable lands.
When the desired outlines of an oasis appear on the horizon before the traveler, exhausted by a long journey, the Arab guide only shakes his head negatively. He knows that there are still tens of kilometers to the oasis under the scorching sun, and what the traveler sees “with his own eyes” is just a mirage.
This optical illusion sometimes misleads even experienced people. Experienced travelers, who have walked through the sands on more than one expedition route and have studied the desert for many years, also happened to become victims of mirages. When you see palm groves and a lake, white clay houses and a mosque with a high minaret at a short distance, it is difficult to bring yourself to believe that in reality they are several hundred kilometers away. Experienced caravan guides sometimes fell under the power of the mirage. One day, sixty people and ninety camels died in the desert, following a mirage that carried them sixty kilometers away from the well.
In ancient times, travelers, to make sure whether it was a mirage or reality, lit a fire. If even a slight breeze blew in the desert, the smoke spreading along the ground quickly dispersed the mirage. For many caravan routes, maps have been drawn up, which indicate places where mirages are often found. These maps even mark what exactly is seen in a particular place: wells, oases, palm groves, mountain ranges, and so on.
And yet, in our time, when two modern highways run from north to south across the great desert, when multi-colored car caravans of the Paris-Dakar rally race along it every year, and artesian wells drilled along the roads make it possible, if necessary, to walk to the nearest source of water, the Sahara gradually turns out to be that disastrous place that European travelers feared more than the Arctic snows and Amazonian jungles.
Increasingly, inquisitive tourists, fed up with beach idleness and contemplation of the ruins of Carthage and other picturesque ruins, go by car or on a camel deep into this unique region of the planet to breathe a breath of the night wind on the slopes of Ahaggar, hear the rustle of palm crowns in the green coolness of the oasis, see the graceful running gazelles and admire the colors of Saharan sunsets. And next to their caravan, running along the side of the road with a quiet rustle are the mysterious guardians of the peace of this hot but beautiful region - dusty-gray, wind-swept “genies of the desert.”
From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary (C) author Brockhaus F.A. From the book Records in the Natural World author Lyakhova Kristina AlexandrovnaSahara The world's largest desert, the Sahara, covers 7,820,000 km2 of sandy and rocky expanses. It extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, from the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean coast in the north to 15° north latitude in the south, where
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GI) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (LI) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (NU) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (PU) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (RE) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (SI) by the author TSB From the book 100 Great Wonders of Nature by Wagner BertilSahara Desert (North Africa) A truly endless sea of sun-scorched sand, stone and clay, enlivened only by rare green spots of oases and a single river - that’s what the Sahara is. The gigantic scale of this largest desert in the world is simply amazing.
From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 1 [Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and Medicine] authorWhat was the Sahara Desert like during the Ice Age? During the Ice Age, a large part of Europe was covered with ice, which is why it rained much more often in North Africa than today, and therefore the current Sahara Desert was a green country. The drying up of the Sahara has begun
From the book 3333 tricky questions and answers author Kondrashov Anatoly PavlovichWhat was the Sahara Desert like during the Ice Age? During the Ice Age, a large part of Europe was covered with ice, which is why it rained much more often in North Africa than today, and therefore the current Sahara Desert was a green country. The drying up of the Sahara has begun
From the book The Complete Encyclopedia of Our Misconceptions author From the book The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Our Misconceptions [with illustrations] author Mazurkevich Sergei AlexandrovichDesert Our ideas about the desert are associated with heat, lack of water, cloudless skies, and a mercilessly scorching sun. We remember dust storms that we ourselves have experienced or about which we have heard and read a lot, about shifting sands or clayey soils devoid of vegetation.
From the book The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Our Misconceptions [with transparent pictures] author Mazurkevich Sergei AlexandrovichDesert Our ideas about the desert are associated with heat, lack of water, cloudless skies, and a mercilessly scorching sun. We remember dust storms that we ourselves have experienced or about which we have heard and read a lot, about shifting sands or clayey soils devoid of vegetation.
From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 1. Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and medicine author Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich From the book A Primer on Survival in Extreme Situations author Molodan IgorDesert (savanna) The daily rate of water consumption in the desert is at least 4 liters. Open reservoirs. Rivers, lakes and streams of oases. The water in oases is polluted, has many mechanical impurities and is saturated with microorganisms, so it can only be consumed after filtering
The air temperature in summer rises to 58°, and in winter it remains within 15-28° C.
Strong winds, during frequent sandstorms, can carry sand dust from the Sahara even to Europe.
An interesting fact is that there are maps on which areas where mirages are observed are marked. And more than 150 thousand of them are observed in the Sahara!
The mysterious and almost mystical eye of the Sahara.
Map of the ancient Sahara.
Vegetation
The vegetation cover of the Sahara includes 1,200 plant species. Most of them are xerophytes or ephemerals. Rocky areas seem lifeless, but even on such soil, seemingly unreal for life, you can find plants that amaze with their ability to adapt to the harsh conditions of the desert.
Rose of Jericho is a plant whose short branches seem to be pinching its seeds with fingers. When it rains, these “fingers” unclench and the seeds fall into moist soil, where they germinate very quickly.
Seeds of other plants also use every drop of moisture, but if there are no favorable conditions, they can sit in dry soil even for several years.
Lichens, small plants with spines and small leaves, spread on the sands and rocks. Gray, grey-green and yellow tones of the vegetation give a lifeless, sad look to the entire desert.
Shrubs and some tough grasses appear near the southern border of the Sahara, and wild pistachios, jujubes and oleanders can be found in the north.
Animal world
The fauna of the Sahara is poor in species, but quite rich in individuals. It includes animals that can move quickly in search of food and water, and can also endure all the harsh conditions of the desert.
The most typical for the Sahara are the oryx and addax antelopes, the dama gazelle, the Dorcas gazelle, and mountain goats. Due to their valuable skins and tasty meat, some species are at risk of extinction.
The most famous predators are jackals, foxes, hyenas, and cheetahs.
There are also birds - migratory and permanent. Among the permanent residents, the desert raven is especially popular.
Of the reptiles, lizards predominate, and there are also many snakes and turtles. And in some reservoirs, real crocodiles have been preserved.
Of course, living in the conditions of the Sahara is very difficult, but for many it is their native land, so they get to feel not only the severity, but also the caress of the desert.
Watch the video: Fearless Planet - Sahara Desert (Discovery: Fearless Planet. Episode 1 Sahara Desert).
Sahara. Tuareg salt caravan. Jim Brasher lives the life of a Tuareg in a salt caravan in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
In the wilds of Africa-2. Episode 3. Sahara. Life on the edge / Sahara. Life On The Edge
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