Desert Life: Animals, Plants, People & the Environment
What is a Desert?
Deserts are often defined as areas that receive less than 10 inches of average annual rainfall. More...
Deserts of North America
Distinct desert areas are determined on the basis of the species of plants growing in a particular desert region. More...
The Chihuahuan Desert
The Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North America covering more than 200,000 square miles. More...
The Great Basin Desert
The Great Basin Desert is a cool or "cold desert" due to its more northern latitude, as well as higher elevations. More...
The Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert has the lowest absolute elevation and the highest maximum temperature of all the North American deserts. More...
The Sonoran Desert
The hottest of the North American deserts, the Sonoran Desert, possesses a bimodal rainfall pattern that produces a high biological diversity. More...
Desert Geological Terms
Deserts contain special geologic features including alluvial fans hogbacks and hoodoos. More...
Desert Environment & Geology
Learn about the rocks, minerals and gemstones that form our North American deserts. More...
Desert Animals & Plants
Desert Plant Survival
Desert plants have adapted to extremes of heat and aridity by using both physical and behavioral mechanisms. More...
What Animals Live in the Desert?
Find out what animals live in the desert and how they survive. More...
Desert Plants & Wildflowers
The deserts are renowned for the annual explosion of spring wildflowers and succulent cactus.. More...
How Are Plants Classified?
Scientists have worked to classify organisms in a way that would help clarify relationships among species. More...
How Are Animals Classified?
Scientists estimate that earth’s 5 to 40 million species of organisms make up a total of some two trillion tons of living matter. More...
Desert Food Chain
The sun fuels the work required for biologic processes embodied in a system of interdependent species. More...
Desert Animal Survival
Lack of water creates a survival problem for all desert organisms. Animals though, are more susceptible to extremes of temperature than are plants. More...
People in the Desert
Desert People & Cultures
Ancient cliff dwellers, modern American Indians, settlers, cowboys, miners - the desert has been home to them all. More...
Desert Survival for People
Learning to be part of the desert's ecosystem is the first step of desert survival. Being prepared is an obvious benefit. More...
Water in the Desert
“It is not a place to fall down, exhausted,” said Tom Cahill in National Geographic Adventure, “People on the ground are literally roasted alive.” More...
Southwestern Water Resources
Severe droughts have occurred in the Southwest more than a dozen times during the past eight centuries. More...
And more...
Vanishing Riparian Landscapes
Early Anglo-American explorers found many rivers and streams still in pristine condition at the mid-nineteenth century. More...
Wildfires in the Southwest
While wildfires in desert basins and mountain ranges leave scars across the land, they can also play a beneficial environmental role. More...
Desert Maps
DesertUSA has collected or created many maps for National Parks, cities, ghost towns, and rock collecting areas. More...
Seasonal Migration
Although birds are often the most evident of the migrants, animals as small as pinhead-sized spiders and as large as blue whales migrate by land, air or water. More...
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The Desert Environment
The North American Deserts
Desert Geological Terms