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    Red Sea Hills

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    The document summarizes the main biomes of Africa, focusing on the Sahara desert. It states that the Sahara covers around 9 million square kilometers across parts of northern Africa, making up 31% of the continent's total area. The Sahara consists mainly of rocky plateaus and some large sand dune fields. Despite being hyperarid, the Sahara contains some mountain ranges and sparse vegetation in areas where moisture collects. The Sahara borders the Mediterranean forests to the north and the Sahel savanna region to the south.

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    Red Sea Hills

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    CAT LAB
    33 views1 page
    The document summarizes the main biomes of Africa, focusing on the Sahara desert. It states that the Sahara covers around 9 million square kilometers across parts of northern Africa, making up 31% of the continent's total area. The Sahara consists mainly of rocky plateaus and some large sand dune fields. Despite being hyperarid, the Sahara contains some mountain ranges and sparse vegetation in areas where moisture collects. The Sahara borders the Mediterranean forests to the north and the Sahel savanna region to the south.

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    The document summarizes the main biomes of Africa, focusing on the Sahara desert. It states that the Sahara covers around 9 million square kilometers across parts of northern Africa, making up 31% of the continent's total area. The Sahara consists mainly of rocky plateaus and some large sand dune fields. Despite being hyperarid, the Sahara contains some mountain ranges and sparse vegetation in areas where moisture collects. The Sahara borders the Mediterranean forests to the north and the Sahel savanna region to the south.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    33 views1 page

    Red Sea Hills

    Uploaded by

    CAT LAB
    The document summarizes the main biomes of Africa, focusing on the Sahara desert. It states that the Sahara covers around 9 million square kilometers across parts of northern Africa, making up 31% of the continent's total area. The Sahara consists mainly of rocky plateaus and some large sand dune fields. Despite being hyperarid, the Sahara contains some mountain ranges and sparse vegetation in areas where moisture collects. The Sahara borders the Mediterranean forests to the north and the Sahel savanna region to the south.

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    Geography

    The main biomes in Africa

    A satellite image of the Sahara by NASA WorldWind


    The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania,
    Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It covers 9 million square
    kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi), amounting to 31% of Africa. If all areas with a mean
    annual precipitation of less than 250 mm were included, the Sahara would be 11
    million square kilometres (4,200,000 sq mi). It is one of three distinct
    physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division. Sahara is so
    large and bright that, in theory, it could be detected from other stars as a
    surface feature of Earth, with near-current technology.[9]

    The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada (stone plateaus); ergs (sand seas – large areas
    covered with sand dunes) form only a minor part, but many of the sand dunes are
    over 180 metres (590 ft) high.[10] Wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features:
    sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains (reg), dry
    valleys (wadi), dry lakes (oued), and salt flats (shatt or chott).[11] Unusual
    landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania.

    Several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including
    the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des
    Iforas, and the Red Sea Hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a
    shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad.

    The central Sahara is hyperarid, with sparse vegetation. The northern and southern
    reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and
    desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis, where moisture collects. In
    the central, hyperarid region, there are many subdivisions of the great desert:
    Tanezrouft, the Ténéré, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Desert, the Nubian Desert
    and others. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years.

    To the north, the Sahara skirts the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions of
    Libya, but in Cyrenaica and the Maghreb, the Sahara borders the Mediterranean
    forest, woodland, and scrub eco-regions of northern Africa, all of which have a
    Mediterranean climate characterized by hot summers and cool and rainy winters.
    According to the botanical criteria of Frank White[12] and geographer Robert Capot-
    Rey,[13][14] the northern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the northern limit of
    date palm cultivation and the southern limit of the range of esparto, a grass
    typical of the Mediterranean climate portion of the Maghreb and Iberia. The
    northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm (3.9 in) isohyet of annual
    precipitation.[15]

    To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of dry tropical savanna
    with a summer rainy season that extends across Africa from east to west. The
    southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of
    Cornulaca monacantha (a drought-tolerant member of the Chenopodiaceae), or northern
    limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel.[13][14] According to
    climatic criteria, the southern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm (5.9
    in) isohyet of annual precipitation (this is a long-term average, since
    precipitation varies annually).[15]

    Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott, the capital of


    Mauritania; Tamanrasset, Ouargla, Béchar, Hassi Messaoud, Ghardaïa, and El Oued in
    Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; Ghat in Libya; and Faya-Largeau in
    Chad.

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