Over thousands of years, many different natural features, or landforms, have developed in deserts. A desert landform is a place that gets little to no rain. The climate can be either hot or cold and sometimes both. Each desert landform has one thing in common; it has less than 10 inches of rain per year. Usually deserts have a lot of wind because they are flat and have no vegetation to block out the wind.These include hills; mountains; narrow, steep-sided valleys called canyons; large, flat areas called plains; sand dunes; strange rock formations; and oases.

1. Sand dunes: These hills are formed by the wind blowing across the desert sand, so that it piles up. The most common in deserts include barchans and seif dunes. Barchan dunes are formed due to the wind action resulting in crescent-shaped dunes. These small crescent-shaped sand bodies form in locations where the wind blows consistently from one direction. Seif dunes, on the other hand, are long and narrow with a sharp crest common in the Sahara. They can also form a long chain of dunes.

2. Oases: Rare underground water can create pools of water. Plants then spring up around them. Oases typically occurs in the middle of a desert. They are fertile areas of the desert consisting of one or multiple springs surrounded by vegetation. Oasis is formed due to a mix of extreme temperatures resulting in islands of life. This comes about because the oases is situated in parts of the desert where the elevation is so low that the water table is just near the surface enabling vegetation to flourish.

3. Mesas and buttes: A mesa is a hill with steep sides and a flat top. A smaller mesa is sometimes called a butte. These landforms can also be called table mountains or table hills, because the word mesa actually means table in Spanish.

Scientists believe that mesas and buttes were formed when streams or rivers weathered and eroded away the smaller, softer rocks, leaving only the strong rock of the mesa or butte behind.

 

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