Hi Guys!
Welcome to a 'Dummies Guide to the Chihuahuan Desert (Blog edition)'! Today I'll be giving you some brain-boggling facts about this Desert! Here are some quick facts that should geet your brain focused:
-The Chihuahuan Desert covers more than 200,000 square miles, making it the 3rd largest desert within the western hemisphere!
-This desert covers such a large area that it's extremely difficult to characterise its geology!
-The Chihuahuan Desert alone contains around 7 large mountain ranges! These include the Sierra Madre, the Sacremento, and the Guadalupe mountain ranges!
-This desert is a little-studied ecoregion, granting it the title of 'Unclassified'! (see figure 1)
-The Chihuahuan Desert covers more than 200,000 square miles, making it the 3rd largest desert within the western hemisphere!
-This desert covers such a large area that it's extremely difficult to characterise its geology!
-The Chihuahuan Desert alone contains around 7 large mountain ranges! These include the Sierra Madre, the Sacremento, and the Guadalupe mountain ranges!
-This desert is a little-studied ecoregion, granting it the title of 'Unclassified'! (see figure 1)
Need a Hand? (see figure 2)
Hmm.... thinking about walking across this ohmygoditssolarge patch of sand? Maybe you might want to reconsider, once I tell you why.....
Landscape!
The Chihuahuan Desert is known for being the second largest North-American desert, so it obviously would take days and days to cross it! Not only that, but it contains mountain ranges including the Sierra Madre(figure 2.1), the Sacramento Mountains (figure 2.2) and the Guadalupe Mountains (figure 2.3). All these mountains create coniferous and broadleaf woodlands (figure 2.4) and even forests!
Weather!
The Chihuahuan desert can go from a scorching 40 degrees celcius to a freezing 5 degrees (figure 3)! Also, this desert even has its own monsoon season! WOW!
Wildlife!
Since the journey there will take a long time you will probably run out of food, forcing you to eat a lot of dessert food (lame joke)! You can happily munch on some prickly pears (figure 4) or even Peyote. Or if you're lucky, some scorpions or snakes! Don't worry, you'll find something: the Chihuahuan desert is the most biologically diverse desert in the world (see figure 4.1)!
Still want to go on that trip of yours?
Landscape!
The Chihuahuan Desert is known for being the second largest North-American desert, so it obviously would take days and days to cross it! Not only that, but it contains mountain ranges including the Sierra Madre(figure 2.1), the Sacramento Mountains (figure 2.2) and the Guadalupe Mountains (figure 2.3). All these mountains create coniferous and broadleaf woodlands (figure 2.4) and even forests!
Weather!
The Chihuahuan desert can go from a scorching 40 degrees celcius to a freezing 5 degrees (figure 3)! Also, this desert even has its own monsoon season! WOW!
Wildlife!
Since the journey there will take a long time you will probably run out of food, forcing you to eat a lot of dessert food (lame joke)! You can happily munch on some prickly pears (figure 4) or even Peyote. Or if you're lucky, some scorpions or snakes! Don't worry, you'll find something: the Chihuahuan desert is the most biologically diverse desert in the world (see figure 4.1)!
Still want to go on that trip of yours?
Figure 2
Here's a hand
Now- on to the hard facts
The Chihuahuan Desert is part of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Zacatecas, and Nuevo Leon. Starting to understand the immense size of it? For a map, see figure 5.
Figure 5
Chihuahuan Desert in red
Historical Facts (yaaawwnn)
Since the Chihuahuan Desert has not been fully studied, not much can be found about its history. However, I do know one thing- the Chihuahuan Desert probably was named after the Mexican city Chihuahua (figure 6), and definitely not named after the dog chihuahua (figure 6.1), unless by some chance the dogs had come from the Chihuahuan Desert. Also, the Chihuahuan Desert used to be a wonderful place teeming with life. Unfortunately, due to the fact that there were too many animals, grazing problems had driven some species to nearly go extinct, such as the Mexican Wolf (figure 6.2).
So, that's all I can find about it.
So, that's all I can find about it.
Conclusion
I hope you have learned a lot about this large and beautiful ecoregion. It really would be great to see some Mexican Wolves running around, or to try tasting some Prickly Pears! Don't forget to keep learning about it in wikipedia/google/yahoo/ask, etc!
Bye guys!
Hopefully you have had fun looking at the wonderful desert guide- be sure to check my other guides as well!
BYE!
BYE!
