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The low desert of southeastern California is part of the Sonoran desert ecoregion, which extends into Arizona and parts of northern Mexico. [ 2] California has two high deserts: the Mojave desert and the Great Basin Desert. The Mojave desert ecoregion is marked by the presence of Joshua trees. [ 3] The dry cold Great Basin desert of California ...
The desert region of California is characterized by low rainfall, caused by the rain shadow of mountain ranges to the west of the desert region. The Mojave Desert receives from 3 to 10 inches (76 to 254 mm) of rain per year, while the Colorado Desert receives from 2 to 6 inches (51 to 152 mm). [ 10] The driest spot in California is Death Valley ...
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. [ 4]
Chaparral in the Santa Ynez Mountains, near Santa Barbara, California. Chaparral ( / ˌʃæpəˈræl, ˌtʃæp -/ SHAP-ə-RAL, CHAP-) [ 1] is a shrubland plant community found primarily in California, in southern Oregon and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet ...
The Mojave Desert is a desert bordered to the west by the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the California montane chaparral and woodlands, and to the south and east by the Sonoran Desert. The boundaries to the east of the Mojave Desert are less distinctive than the other boundaries because there is no presence of an indicator species, such as ...
The Sonoran Desert ( Spanish: Desierto de Sonora) is a hot desert in North America and ecoregion 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 both Mexico and the United States. [ 3]
Caliche fossil forest on San Miguel Island, California. Caliche (/ k ə ˈ l iː tʃ iː /) - (unrelated to the street-slang "Caliche" spoken in El Salvador) - is a sedimentary rock, a hardened natural cement of calcium carbonate that binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt.
Desertification is a type of gradual land degradation of fertile land into arid desert due to a combination of natural processes and human activities. The immediate cause of desertification is the loss of most vegetation. This is driven by a number of factors, alone or in combination, such as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture ...