With its red dunes rolling endlessly into the ocean, the Namib is the oldest desert in the world — a sea of silica stretching along Namibia's entire Atlantic coast.
Dating back at least 55 million years, the Namib is believed to be the world's oldest desert (the Sahara is thought to be just two to seven million years old). With summer temperatures routinely reaching 45C and nights that can dip below freezing, it's also one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.
This is Atacama Desert. Situated to the north of Chile, between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, this region of around 180,000 km² is also considered to be the most arid, non-polar region on the planet. In some areas, less than 1 mm of rainfall is recorded per year.
Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib may be the oldest desert in the world and contains some of the world's driest regions, with only western South America's Atacama Desert to challenge it for age and aridity benchmarks.
The Kalahari has existed as an inland desert since the Cretaceous period (65-135 million years ago). It has experienced both periods of greater humidity and more aridity, documented in fossil dune fields. It was during a period of greater rainfall that the Makgadikgadi Depression in northern Botswana was formed.
New research looking into what appears to be dust that the Sahara blew over to the Canary Islands is providing the first direct evidence from dry land that the age of the Sahara matches that found in deep-sea sediments: at least 4.6 million years old.
As already mentioned, Antarctic Desert is the largest desert in the world, it is located in the southern hemisphere in the continent of Antarctica. It expands across 14,000,000 kilometres(5,500,000 square miles).
The Sahara Desert in Africa is the world's third largest desert, and it is larger than the continent of Australia.
There are four types of deserts: subtropical deserts are hot and dry year-round; coastal deserts have cool winters and warm summers; cold winter deserts have long, dry summers and low rainfall in the winter; polar deserts are cold year-round.
Set between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean in northern Chile, the Atacama Desert unfolds its wild, lunar landscape over 180,000 km2. It is the oldest desert in the world but also the most arid region.
By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.
World: Longest Recorded Dry Period
Lane notes that no rainfall has ever been recorded at Calama in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
We estimate that the modern Gobi Desert landscape was formed at ~2.6 Ma and was the result of the stepwise evolution of Asian topography and climate during the Cenozoic, dominated by Asian tectonic deformation and uplift, and the evolution of Asian monsoon climate and the westerly circulation, forced by global ...
Deserts have existed since at least the Permian period (299-251 million years ago) when the world's continents had combined into the Pangaea supercontinent.
No, around 11,000 years ago, the Sahara wasn't a desert at all. Instead, it was covered in plant life. It also held bodies of water. There was even a “megalake” that covered over 42,000 square miles.
Deserts are found on every continent and cover about one-fifth of Earth's land area. They are home to around 1 billion people—one-sixth of the Earth's population.
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is the seventh largest desert in the world. It is located in Southern Africa, covering most of Botswana, as well parts of Namibia, and South Africa.
Antarctica, Ladakh, Gobi desert are examples of cold desert. Gobi desert is located in China and Mongolia.
The deserts of Australia or the Australian deserts cover about 2,700,000 km2 (1,000,000 sq mi), or 18% of the Australian mainland, but about 35% of the Australian continent receives so little rain, it is practically desert.
US and Australian researchers say settlers who came to Australia 50,000 years ago and set fires that burned off natural flora and fauna may have triggered a cataclysmic weather change that turned the country's interior into the dry desert it is today.
Australia is the second-driest continent in the world, with mean annual rainfall less than 600mm for more than 80 per cent of Australia. Australia is so dry because we sit under the subtropical high-pressure belt, which encourages the air to push down, preventing the lift required for rain.
How many deserts are in the world? There are 23 deserts in the world. What are the most famous deserts in the world? Some famous deserts in the world are the Sahara, Antarctic, Arctic, Gobi and Namib deserts.
Interestingly, the second-largest desert in the world is also notoriously cold – The Arctic Desert. Located above 75 degrees north latitude, the Arctic Desert covers a total area of about 13.7 million square km (5.29 million square mi).