|
The Arabian Desert is located in Western Asia. It is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, with an area of . At its center is the Rub'al-Khali, one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world. Gazelles, oryx, sand cats, and spiny-tailed lizards are just some of the desert-adapted species that survive in this extreme environment, which features everything from red dunes to deadly quicksand. The climate is mostly dry (the major part receives around 100 mm of rain per year but some very rare places receives down to 50 mm), and temperatures oscillate between very high heat and seasonal night time freezes. It is part of the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome and the Palearctic ecozone. This ecoregion holds little biodiversity, although a few endemic plants grow here. Many species, such as the striped hyena, jackal and honey badger have become extinct in this area due to hunting, human encroachment and habitat destruction. Other species have been successfully re-introduced, such as the sand gazelle, and are protected at a number of reserves. Overgrazing by livestock, off-road driving, and human destruction of habitat are the main threats to this desert ecoregion. ==Geology and geography== Detailed geological features: * A corridor of sandy terrain known as the Ad-Dahna desert connects the large An-Nafud desert (65,000 km2 or 40,389 square mile) in the north of Saudi Arabia to the Rub' Al-Khali in the south-east. * The Tuwaiq escarpment is a region of arc of limestone cliffs, plateaux, and canyons. * Brackish salt flats: the quicksands of Umm al Samim * The Wahiba sands of Oman : an isolated sand sea bordering the east coast * The Rub' Al-Khali〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.alovelyworld.com/webyemen/htmgb/yem027.htm )〕 desert is a sedimentary basin elongated on a south-west to north-east axis across the Arabian shelf. At an altitude of , the rock landscapes yield the place to the Rub' al Khali, vast wide of sand of the Arabian desert, whose extreme southern point crosses the centre of Yemen. The sand overlies gravel or gypsum plains and the dunes reach maximum heights of up to . The sands are predominantly silicates, composed of 80 to 90% of quartz and the remainder feldspar, whose iron oxide-coated grains color the sands in orange, purple, and red 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arabian Desert」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|