- Borders and location
- Climate in the Thar Desert
- Desert soil composition
- The origin of the desert
- Vegetation
- Video
There are many amazing places on this planet - mountains and forests, oceans and deserts. Yes, yes, and these seemingly unremarkable territories keep many mysteries and secrets. For example, the Thar Desert, located on the border of India and Pakistan, and it was able to "grab" a larger piece in the northwestern region of the Indian state and, accordingly, a smaller piece in the southeastern Pakistani region.
Scientists have made more or less accurate calculations of the area occupied by this desert: according to their information, the width is 485 kilometers, the length is 850 kilometers. The total area is 445 thousand square kilometers (of course, plus or minus a couple of kilometers).
Borders and location
In India, Tar is located on lands belonging to the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab. In Pakistan, it occupies the territory of Punjab (Pakistani) and Sindh province (eastern part). By the way, in Pakistan it has a different name - Holistan and has a continuation: it smoothly passes into the Thal desert.
It is difficult to say how the locals distinguish where one geographic object ends and another begins. Perhaps geographers did it for them, who note that the following objects are the boundaries:
- the Sutlenge River (in the northwestern part);
- Aravalli ridge (northeast);
- salt marshes belonging to the Bolshoi Kachsky Rann, sometimes they are mistakenly referred to the territories of the Thar desert (south);
- the famous Indus River (west).
The most difficult thing is to distinguish the northern border of Tara, here are the steppes, on which thorny bushes grow. The territory of the desert is flat, there are small differences in elevation.
Climate in the Thar Desert
It is clear that such a geographical position of the desert determines its climate - subtropical, but dry, the so-called continental. There is very little precipitation, in the western part the norm is 90 mm per year, in the eastern part it is twice as much - up to 200 mm. Moreover, the rains appear with the arrival of the summer monsoon.
Precipitation is unevenly distributed: firstly, most of it falls in summer and in September, and secondly, in the western parts the amount is much less than in other territories. The driest areas suffer from lack of rain for several years. The second problem related to the climate is frequent dust storms, most of the time of their occurrence is from May to June, more often in the west.
The temperature range ranges from + 22 ° C (minimum + 4 ° C) in winter to + 40 ° C (minimum + 24 ° C) in summer. Another characteristic feature of the climate of this area is strong temperature drops, regardless of the season. A record figure of + 50 ° C was recorded in Ganganagar.
Desert soil composition
Geologists got involved in the study of the Thar desert, they proved that the sand in these territories is of marine, alluvial or aeolian origin. In some places, you can see that ancient sandstones, hidden under a layer of sand, come to the surface.
Also another characteristic phenomenon for these territories is dunes and dunes, the latter are divided into two types - transverse and longitudinally parabolic. Moreover, the dunes occupy the central part, and the dunes are located closer to the outskirts. They differ significantly in height, if in the south the height of the dunes can reach 150 meters above sea level, then in the north it does not even reach 20 meters.
In addition to dunes and dunes, you can see in the Thar desert and low plateaus, there are quite a few of them. The plateaus are separated by dunes, and their main cover is small pebbles.
Researchers note the presence of salt marshes, takyrs, and small lakes in the territories. There is also groundwater, which is abundant, but the problem is that it is saline in places, which makes it unsuitable for use on the farm.
The origin of the desert
Until now, there are disputes between scientists over the question of what caused the formation of the Thar desert on the map. One of the versions is that this desert is of anthropogenic origin, that is, a person had a hand in its formation: the education was facilitated by improper conduct of economic activities for many centuries.
The second version is that desert territories were formed quite recently, because the Ghaggar River has ceased to play the role of the main water stream. Its former name is Saraswati, it is known that it flowed into the Arabian Sea, and today it ends in the desert.
Fans of the third version claim that the desert was formed about a million years ago, so neither a mismanaged person nor disappearing water streams can be the cause.
Vegetation
Weather and climatic conditions on the territory of the desert determine the presence of peculiar vegetation, even their names are interesting: leptadenia; juzgun; kapparis.
More familiar plants include acacias, which grow well in tropical and subtropical zones. This desert is characterized by hard grass, but despite the sparse vegetation, the locals manage to engage in animal husbandry.
