Deserts Of North America
This list of North American deserts identifies areas of the continent that receive less than annual precipitation. The "North American Desert" is also the term for a large list of ecoregions in the United States (EPA), U.S. Level 1 ecoregion (EPA) of the North American Cordillera, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome (WWF). The continent's deserts are largely between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre Oriental on the east, and the rain shadow–creating Cascade Range, Cascades, Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada, Transverse Ranges, Transverse, and Peninsular Ranges on the west. The North American xeric region of over includes three major deserts, numerous smaller deserts, and large non-desert arid regions in the Western United States and in northeastern, central, and northwestern Mexico. Overview The following are three major hot and dry deserts in North America, all located in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. *The Chihuahuan Desert is the la ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Transverse Ranges
The Transverse Ranges are a group of mountain ranges of Southern California, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region in North America. The Transverse Ranges begin at the southern end of the California Coast Ranges and lie within Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Kern counties. The Peninsular Ranges lie to the south. The name is due to the ranges' east–west orientation, making them wikt:transverse, transverse to the general northwest–southeast orientation of most of California's coastal mountains.Dibblee Jr, T.W., 1982. Regional geology of the Transverse Ranges Province of southern California. ''Geology and mineral wealth of the California Transverse Ranges'', ''10'', pp.7-26. The ranges extend from west of Point Conception eastward approximately 500 kilometers into the Mojave Desert, Mojave and Colorado Desert. The geology and topography of the ranges express three distinct segments that have contrasting elevations, rock types, and veg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Great Basin Desert
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range in the western United States. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave Desert, Mojave, Sonoran Desert, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts. Basin and range topography characterizes the desert: wide valleys bordered by parallel mountain ranges generally oriented north–south. There are more than 33 peaks within the desert with summits higher than , but valleys in the region are also high, most with elevations above . The biol ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the ninth-least densely populated U.S. state. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's population live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); due to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the Union benefited immensely from the support of newly awarded statehood by the infusion of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an international border with the Mexico, Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With almost 40million residents across an area of , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, largest state by population and List of U.S. states and territories by area, third-largest by area. Prior to European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following Mexican War of Independence, its successful war for independence, but Mexican Cession, was ceded to the U ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah. The Mojave Desert, together with the Sonoran Desert, Sonoran, Chihuahuan Desert, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin Desert, Great Basin deserts, form a larger List of North American deserts, North American desert. Of these, the Mojave is the smallest and driest. It displays typical basin and range topography, generally having a pattern of a series of parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is also the site of Death Valley, which is the lowest elevation in North America. The Mojave Desert is often colloquially called the "high desert", as most of it lies between . It supports a diversity of flora and fauna. The desert supports a numb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It is the hottest desert in Mexico. It has an area of . In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran floristic province of the Madrean region of southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic realm of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique endemic plants and animals, notably, the saguaro (''Carnegiea gigantea'') and organ pipe cactus (''Stenocereus thurberi''). The Sonoran Desert is clearly distinct from nearby deserts (e.g., the Great Basin, Mojave, and Chihuahuan deserts) because it provides subtropical warmth in winter and two seasons of rainfall (in contrast, for example, to the Mojave's dry summers and cold winters). This creates an extreme contrast between aridity and moistur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
University Of California Museum Of Paleontology
The University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) is a paleontology museum located on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The museum is within the Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB), designed by George W. Kelham and completed in 1930. Its collections are primarily intended for research and are, thus, not accessible to the public. A limited number of fossils from the collection is on display in the VLSB. Although located on the Berkeley campus, the museum is the primary locality for storing fossils collected statewide. The original fossils, around which the current collection has grown, were those gathered as part of the California Geological Survey from 1860 to 1867. Website UCMP was one of the first museums to have its own website in the early 1990s, due to its location within a technology-oriented university with a good Internet connection. The site has been applauded for its use of visually appealing graphics, was nominated for a Webby A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Northern Mexico
Northern Mexico ( ), commonly referred as , is an informal term for the northern cultural and geographical area in Mexico. Depending on the source, it contains some or all of the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas. There is no specific border that separates the northern states from the southern states in Mexico. For some authors, only states that have a border with the United States are considered as northern Mexico, i.e. Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora and Tamaulipas. Others also include Durango, Sinaloa and Baja California Sur. Other people consider that the north starts above the Tropic of Cancer, but this description would include some parts of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí that are not considered northern states. History Before colonization It is not known precisely when the first settlers came to northern Mexico. The harsh climate in th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The largest cities by List of metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan area are Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, Las Vegas, El Paso, Texas, El Paso, Albuquerque, and Tucson, Arizona, Tucson. Before 1848, in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as well as parts of Alta California and Coahuila y Tejas, settlement was almost non-existent outside of New Mexico's pueblos and Santa Fe de Nuevo México#Regions and municipalities, Spanish or Mexican municipalities. Much of the area had been a part of New Spain and Mexico until the United States acquired the area through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the smaller Gadsden Purchase in 1854. While the regio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Desert
A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or Semi-arid climate, semi-arid. This includes much of the Polar regions of Earth, polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night strain the Rock (geology), rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting frag ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |