Takla Makan Desert
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- Chinese (Pinyin):
- Taklimakan Shamo or
- (Wade-Giles romanization):
- T’a-k’o-la-ma-kan Sha-mo
Takla Makan Desert, great desert of Central Asia and one of the largest sandy deserts in the world. The Takla Makan occupies the central part of the Tarim Basin in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, western China. The desert area extends about 600 miles (960 km) from west to east, and it has a maximum width of some 260 miles (420 km) and a total area of approximately 123,550 square miles (320,000 square km). The desert reaches elevations of 3,900 to 4,900 feet (1,200 to 1,500 metres) above sea level in the west and south and from 2,600 to 3,300 feet (800 to 1,000 metres) in the east and north.
Physical features
The Takla Makan is flanked by high mountain ranges: the Tien Shan to the north, the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the Pamirs to the west. There is a gradual transition to the Lop Nur basin in the east; in the south and west, between the sandy desert and the mountains, lies a band of sloping desert lowland composed of pebble-detritus deposits.
Physiography
Several small mountain ranges and chains, composed of sandstones and clays of Cenozoic age (i.e., formed within about the past 65 million years), rise in the western part of the desert. The arc-shaped Mazartag Mountains, located between the Hotan and Yarkand (Ye’erqiang) river valleys, arch toward the southwest. Some 90 miles (145 km) long and 2 to 3 miles (3 to 5 km) wide, and with a maximum height of 5,363 feet (1,635 metres), they rise an average of only 1,000 to 1,150 feet (300 to 350 metres) above the surface of the sandy plain. Nearby is another insular range, surrounded on all sides by massifs of moving sands; Rosstagh Mountain, also known as Tokhtakaz Mountain, reaches an elevation of 5,117 feet (1,560 metres), and the range rises from 600 to 800 feet (180 to 240 metres) above the plain. Both ranges are covered by a shallow mantle of eluvium and rock debris and have sparse, desert-type vegetation. In the north the sands of the Takla Makan form a clear boundary with the vegetated Tarim River valley.
The general slope of the plain is from south to north, and the rivers running off from the Kunlun Mountains flow in that direction. The Hotan and Keriya river valleys have survived up to the present day, but most of the shallower rivers have been lost in the sands, after which their empty valleys were filled by wind-borne sand.
The surface of the Takla Makan is composed of friable alluvial deposits several hundred feet thick. This alluvial stratum has been affected by the wind, and its wind-borne sand cover is as much as 1,000 feet thick. The relief consists of a variety of eolian (wind-formed) topographic features and variously shaped sand dunes. These eolian sand dunes were formed through the weathering of the alluvial and colluvial deposits of the Tarim Basin and of the foothill plains of the Kunluns and eastern Tien Shan. The size of the larger sand-dune chains is considerable: they range from 100 to 500 feet (30 to 150 metres) in height and 800 to 1,650 feet (240 to 500 metres) in width, with a distance between the chains of 0.5 to 3 miles (1 to 5 km). The highest eolian topographic forms are the pyramidal dunes, rising 650 to 1,000 feet (200 to 300 metres). In the eastern and central parts of the desert, networks of hollow dunes and large, complex sand-dune chains predominate. They also are common in the western portion of the desert (east of the Hotan River valley), where transverse and longitudinal (with respect to the wind) topographic forms coexist. On the edge of the desert, semipermanent, clustered sand dunes with tamarisk and nitre bushes—as well as clayey regions with disconnected sand dunes—predominate. Such a diversity in eolian features is a result of the complex wind conditions of the basin.
Climate
The Takla Makan’s climate is moderately warm and markedly continental, with a maximum annual temperature range of 70 °F (39 °C). Precipitation is extremely low, ranging from 1.5 inches (38 mm) per year in the west to 0.4 inch (10 mm) annually in the east. The air temperature in the summer is high, rising to as much as 100 °F (38 °C) on the eastern edge of the desert. In July the average air temperature is 77 °F (25 °C) in the eastern regions. Winters are cold: in January the average air temperature is 14 to 16 °F (−10 to −9 °C), and the lowest temperature reached in winter generally falls below −4 °F (−20 °C).
Northerly and northwesterly winds prevail in the summer in the western region. These two air currents, on meeting near the desert’s centre at the northern extreme of the Keriya River, create a complex circulation system that is clearly reflected in the topography of the sand dunes. In the spring, when the surface sand becomes warm, ascending currents develop, and northeasterly winds become particularly strong. During that period, hurricane-force dust storms, filling the atmosphere with dust to altitudes up to about 13,000 feet (4,000 metres), often occur. Winds from other directions also raise clouds of dust into the air, covering the Takla Makan with a shroud for almost the entire year.
Drainage
Since the Tarim depression is an internal-drainage basin, the entire runoff from the surrounding mountains collects in the basin itself, feeding the rivers and the groundwater strata. In all probability, the groundwater table under the sands flows from the west to the arid basin of Lop Nur in the east. The importance of precipitation in moistening the sands and feeding the groundwaters is slight, however, because of its small quantity and high rate of evaporation. The rivers draining the Kunlun Mountains penetrate about 60 to 120 miles (100 to 200 km) into the desert, gradually drying up in the sands. Only the Hotan River crosses the centre of the desert and, in summer, occasionally carries its waters to the Tarim River.