Where is the Gobi Desert
Region Central Asia. The Gobi Desert, covering an area of about 1.3 million km², is located in Mongolia and China. From the north it is bordered by the mountains of the Mongolian Altai and Khangai, from the south by Nanshan and Altintag.
Climate
The climate of the desert is sharply continental, with the highest temperature ranges in the world. So, in winter it is -40 ° C, and in summer - + 45 ° C. The third largest desert in the world, the largest desert in Asia. Although the Gobi is called a desert, such a name does not quite fit it. Unlike other deserts, precipitation falls here not so little: about 200-300 mm per year, which is 2 times the amount of precipitation typical for a real desert region.
Geographic coordinates 43 ° 45'00 ″ north latitude; 111 ° 50'00 ″ east longitude.
Gobi Desert on the map.
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Geographic regions
The name Gobi is translated from Mongolian as "a space devoid of water." In the possession of the Gobi there are several completely different regions in terms of climate, differing in their appearance. It is not for nothing that the Mongols say about their desert: "We have 33 Gobi, and everyone is different!"
North Gobi
The Northern Gobi is located south of Ulan Bator and reaches the very spurs of the Mongolian Altai. It is by no means a desert, but a steppe covered with thick grasses, in which tulips are brightly dazzled in spring.
Trans-Altai Gobi
The Trans-Altai Gobi originates immediately behind the eastern end of the Altai Mountains. Its landscapes are mainly rocky steppes with dried bushes of wormwood and semi-desert, crossed by dry river beds.
Other parts of the Gobi are also multifaceted: the Eastern Gobi, Dzungarian Gobi, Gashun Gobi, Gobi Altai. On them you can see salt marshes, high mountains, flat plains, salt lakes and clear rivers, on the banks of which poplars turn green.
Eastern Gobi
Near Manchuria are the Eastern Gobi steppes, where extinct volcanoes rise, which operated in the 6th century. They are relatively small, no more than 300 m in height, but, as before, they remind people of their vigorous activity. In some places you can see frozen lava flows, and the slopes are dotted with volcanic boulders and bombs.
Alashan Gobi
Alashan - Chinese desert, reaching the Nanshan mountains in the southwest and the Yellow River in the southeast. There are mostly sandy soils and a really hot climate.
There are also classic desert places in the Gobi, although there are not so many of them. Almost all of them are located in its western and southern extremities and border on the hot and sultry deserts of Alashan and Taklamakan. The main rulers of the Gobi were the wind and the sun. Sunny days are almost constant here, and the winds blowing constantly can sometimes reach hurricane strength. They cause terrible sandstorms that cover entire villages with a thick layer of sand.
Mongolian Gobi
Mongolian Gobi is located in Mongolia on the Peshan mountain range. The soil is dominated by "chestnut", that is, it is a steppe with tall grasses and herd animals. This is the largest desert in the Gobi.
Dzungarian and Gashun Gobi
In the Dzungar and Gashun Gobi of incredible strength, winds easily tear off roofs from houses, tear apart the tents of researchers and geologists, overturn light yurts. Autumn hurricanes, which are accompanied by rain and hail, are quite dangerous. Individual hailstones the size of a hen's egg can kill even a goat or ram. The grains of sand carried by the winds polish the rocks so that they turn into amazing fantastic figures. Such natural creations were discovered not far from the northern outskirts of the Dzungarian Gobi by the famous traveler, writer, geologist, geographer V. Obruchev.
Dzungaria is a desert depression bounded by the mountainous massifs of the Tien Shan and Altai. Since ancient times, the route from Central Asia to China passed through it. For millennia, it was a link between Central Asia and China, since only the narrow Dzungar gates made it possible for caravans to pass between the mighty mountain systems. It was there that the Great Silk Road passed, along which merchants went from Samarkand to Mongolia and Tibet, as well as to the banks of the Yangtze River. Dzungaria has seen the campaigns of the warlike Huns and the countless hordes of Genghis Khan.
Vegetation
In more humid places of the desert, there are thickets of white and black saxaul and groves, which consist of dwarf elm trees, which serve as a wonderful refuge for birds. Ilms have a thick short trunk and a wide flat crown. Some of the trees of this species in the Gobi Desert are 400-500 years old.
In the semi-desert parts, you can find many shrubs of caragana and fragrant wormwood, almonds, ephedra, juniper and baglur, which have adapted to life on dehydrated and salty lands. And on the leeward side of the rock formations, there are multi-colored crusty lichens. The further south, the less vegetation becomes. But even there it is possible to meet shoots of astragalus, gobi rhubarb, waida, henbane, Mongolian thermopsis, iris, onion, milkweed and saltpeter.
Animal world
The nature of the Gobi is amazing. Only here it is possible to meet a wild Przewalski's horse, as well as a wild camel. Another rare animal lives in the desert - a kulan, or a wild donkey, which you will not see anywhere except the Gobi and 2-3 more regions of the world. Gobi gazelles and saigas live in the Gobi territories, and among the birds you can meet the desert eagle.
There are also wolves, gobi bears "Mazalai", gazelles, black-tailed gazelles, wild horses, small rodents - gobi pikas, voles, ground squirrels, jerboas, as well as Przewalski's lizard - a species of lizards from the genus Lizard. Brown bears and snow leopards enter the desert from the foothills. And on top of that, there are many types of insects. Even on a surface hot up to + 70 ° C, small living creatures run - darkling beetles and desert grasshoppers
Development history. Expeditions
To the north of the Dzungarian Gate, not far from the Tarbagatai ridge, Obruchev and his companions in 1906 saw an absolutely unusual landscape, which was mistaken for an ancient city. The territory of several square kilometers was occupied by whimsical castles with turrets, the remains of fortress walls, monuments, obelisks, high pillars. Round stones protruded from the walls, resembling the cannonballs left by the enemy shelling the city. On the streets and squares, there were pieces of mica that looked like shards of broken window glass. It seemed that many centuries ago this city was taken by storm, and its residents in a hurry left their homes.
After careful study of the ruins, the travelers managed to find out that it was not built by people, but by the wind. The "city" named by Obruchev Eolov (Aeolus - the ancient Greek god of wind) appeared there as a result of weathering and polishing of sandstones, pink, yellowish and greenish clays and marls. Some of the creations of the wind had such an unusual appearance that people gave them the names "bird", "sphinx", "tower of the witch".
Dinosaur graveyard in the desert
At the beginning of the 20th century, in the very center of the Gobi, in the southern part of Mongolia, the expedition of P. K. Kozlov, a student of N. M. Przhevalsky, found the remains of prehistoric animals. However, they were able to thoroughly study them only after the end of the Great Patriotic War.
1946 - an expedition of the Academy of Sciences went to Mongolia, under the leadership of a paleontologist and famous science fiction writer I. A. Efremova. The researchers needed to carry out excavations in the area of the intermontane depressions of the Gobi Altai and the Eastern Gobi.
Efremov and his companions discovered three sites with the remains of ancient lizards of the Mesozoic era. The huge skeletons, which at times weighed tens of tons, have been remarkably well preserved. In addition to dinosaurs, there were bones of prehistoric crocodiles, sea turtles, mammals. The researchers also found a large number of clam shells.
Based on these findings, it was possible to establish that about 130 million years ago, in the place where the Gobi Desert now stretches, there was a huge swampy lowland in contact with a shallow sea. On the plain, herbivorous dinosaurs grazed, and their predatory brethren followed them, choosing their prey from among the weak and sick.
Over time, the mountain building process ended in this territory and a hot arid climate was established, which was the reason for the good preservation of animal remains. This was the first time when not separate fragments of skeletons were found, but whole cemeteries of the most diverse representatives of the fauna of the most ancient periods.
The burial was located in the western part of the Gobi, not far from the ranges of the Mongolian Altai. Later, scientists have found two more cemeteries of prehistoric dinosaurs in the east of Mongolia. Huge fossilized coniferous tree trunks were also found there. The length of some specimens reached 15 m, diameter - 1.5 m.
The skeletons of giant lizards brought from the Gobi expeditions are now kept in the Paleontological Museum in Moscow, as well as in Ulan Bator, in the Central Museum of Mongolia.
Gobi desert today
The Gobi Desert is slowly but surely sliding southward, and therefore sandstorms have become more frequent in the northern and central regions of China. The Chinese government is taking urgent measures to improve the operation of the meteorological services in order to protect the country from the attacks approaching from the desert.
Much attention is paid to long-term weather forecasting, which makes it possible to learn about the approach of the raging elements long before the first signs of a sand storm appear. Scientists have calculated that the Gobi Desert is destroying fertile soil at a rate of 2.4% per year. Relatively recently, the sandstorm stopped just 18 km from the Chinese capital. There is a sad joke among the Peking people that a little more - and in the vicinity of Beijing it will be possible to hunt the inhabitants of the Gobi - wild camels.
Interesting Facts
• Most of the soils of the Gobi are rocky and rocky, not sand.
• The desert occupies up to 30% of the territory of Mongolia and about 28% of the Chinese territory.
• The Gobi is located on the site of the ancient Tethys Ocean. Many dinosaur remains were found in these places. The most famous finds are the fighting Velociraptor and Protoceraptos.
• A characteristic feature of the desert is a very strong, hurricane wind. It is more often found in the Goshun Gobi and Dzungaria.