- General facts about the Sechura Desert
- Desert climate
- Desert and man
The most famous desert in Peru is the Atacama; few people know that its continuation and inseparable part is the Sechura desert. It occupies territories off the western coast of the country, actually located in the northwest of South America.
General facts about the Sechura Desert
If you look at the geographical map of Peru, you can see that Sechura looks like a coastal strip, washed on one side by the waters of the Pacific Ocean, on the other side squeezed by the formidable Andes.
The length of the desert territories is about 150 kilometers, it is difficult to calculate the exact data, since Atacama is located in the vicinity of Sechura, where it is impossible to determine the border between them.
From west to east, you can calculate the parameters of this desert, but it is not an ideal flat strip, so the width at its narrowest point is twenty kilometers. The largest indicator of the extent of the desert from west to east is one hundred kilometers.
Other interesting facts about the Sechura desert include the following:
- geologists in these territories discovered a phosphorite deposit, the largest in the world;
- in parallel with phosphorites, the development of metals and rare elements is underway;
- Piura and Chiclayo - two of the five major cities in Peru have found shelter in these lands.
Perhaps the latter fact was influenced by the presence of a more or less favorable climate in the Sechura Desert.
Desert climate
Forecasters determined that Sechura is one of the coldest deserts in the world, the average annual temperature here is only + 22 ° C. Coastal waters and cold ocean currents off the coast are one of the reasons for this relatively moderate air temperature.
The second reason is the south-westerly winds, which are constantly present in this region, and have a strong effect on the temperature regime of the area. The second negative moment of the winds is that they move from place to place masses of sand, and quite large volumes of it and over considerable distances.
Summer in the Sechura desert falls on completely different months, lasts from December to March, at this time sunny and warm weather sets, but the temperature does not exceed + 24 ° C. In winter, which begins in June and lasts until September, it gets cooler. During the day, the temperature regime can be at the “summer” level, reaching + 24 ° С, while at night there is a decrease to + 16 ° С.
Another characteristic natural phenomenon for the Sechura Desert is the formation of thin fogs, and only in winter. The main factor contributing to the appearance of the nebula is the oceanic coast. The thickness of the fog layer reaches four hundred meters, and it does not spread along the ground, as they are used to seeing in central Europe.
The fog rises to a height of up to a thousand meters. On the one hand, it carries out the mission of protecting the earth from excess evaporation, keeping the available meager amount of moisture. On the other hand, fogs create coolness and shade in these areas, making a person's stay quite comfortable.
The territory received the definition "desert" due to the extremely low amount of precipitation falling on its lands during the calendar year. Powerful subtropical anticyclones control the amount of moisture in these areas. In this zone, such a natural phenomenon as the trade wind inversion is noted, its result - the transfer of moisture upward is carried out with great difficulty.
It is this moment that affects the extremely low rainfall. It is estimated that in the best years there was only 50 mm of precipitation, in the worst periods their amount did not reach 20 mm. In addition, the driest desert of the planet - the Atacama, makes its contribution, both in it and in Sechur in some years, in general, there was no precipitation. As a result, the desert has no surface water at all.
Desert and man
It got its name from the city of Sechura, which was located in these territories. In 1728, a terrible disaster, the tsunami, completely destroyed the city's neighborhoods. It was decided to move it to a new place, and leave the toponym to these lands as a memory.
This is not to say that the desert is uninhabited, two of the largest cities in Peru are located here. For a long time, people lived on the territory of Sechura, they chose places near water streams that crossed the desert.
One of the most famous civilizations that existed in these lands was the Mochica culture. Its representatives were engaged in fishing, breeding and trading of guinea pigs, growing peanuts and pumpkin.
Following this civilization, the Sikan culture came to the desert lands; this time is characterized by the fact that people mastered the extraction and smelting of gold. Farming was practiced along the river banks in the irrigated zones.
