List of North American Deserts

The North American Deserts includes all the deserts located on the continent. It is also the term for a large U.S. Level 1 ecoregion (EPA)^[1] of the North American Cordillera, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome (WWF). The continent's deserts are largely between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre Oriental on the east, and the rain shadow creating Sierra Nevada, Transverse, and Peninsular Ranges on the west. The North American xeric region of over 95,751 sq mi (247,990 km²) includes: 3 major deserts; numerous smaller deserts; and large non-desert arid regions; in the western United States and in northeast, central, and northwest Mexico.

Deserts of North America

For all deserts of North America, see List of North American deserts.

Major deserts

• Chihuahuan Desert - (Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona) (140,000 square miles (360,000 km²))
• Mojave Desert - (California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona) (22,000 square miles (57,000 km²))
• Sonoran Desert - (Mexico, Arizona, California) (120,000 square miles (310,000 km²))

Smaller deserts

• Alvord Desert - (Great Basin) (84 square miles (220 km²))
• Amargosa Desert - (Mojave—Great Basin) (600 square miles (1,600 km²))
• Baja California Desert
• Black Rock Desert - (Great Basin) (1,000 square miles (2,600 km²))
• Black Rock Pocket (>12,950 acres (5,240 ha))^[2]
• Bruneau Desert
• Carson Desert - (Great Basin) ^[3] (300 square miles (780 km²))
• Colorado Desert - (Sonoran)
• Diamond A Desert (>203 square miles (530 km²))^[4]
• El Vizcaíno Desert
• Escalante Desert - (Great Basin) (3,270 square miles (8,500 km²))
• Forty Mile Desert - (Great Basin)
• Great Basin Desert - (Great Basin)
• Gran Desierto de Altar - (Sonoran)
• Great Salt Lake Desert - (Great Basin) (4,000 square miles (10,000 km²))
• Great Sandy Desert - (Great Basin) (24,000 square miles (62,000 km²))
• J-P Desert
• Lechuguilla Desert - (Sonoran)
• Owyhee Desert - (Great Basin) (14,000 square miles (36,000 km²))
• Ralston Desert
• Red Desert
• San Emidio Desert^[5] (305 square miles (790 km²))
• Seventy One Desert (>42,211 square miles (109,330 km²))^[6]
• Sevier Desert - (Great Basin)
• Smoke Creek Desert - (Great Basin) (980 square miles (2,500 km²))^[7]
• Tamaulipan mezquital
• Ten Mile Desert
• Tule Desert (Arizona) - (Sonoran)
• Tule Desert (Nevada) - (Mojave—Great Basin) (412 square miles (1,070 km²))^[8]
• Twenty-Six-Mile Desert
• Yp Desert - (Great Basin)
• Yuha Desert - (Sonoran)
• Yuma Desert - (Sonoran)

Western arid regions of North America

The separately defined western arid regions of North America are continental regions of aridity based on available water in addition to rain shadow diminished rainfall ^[9] and which have many non-desert shrub-steppe (EPA) and xeric shrublands (WWF) in addition to desert ecosystems and ecoregions. This large arid region of 190,000 sq mi (490,000 km²) includes: deserts, such as the Great Basin Desert and Sonoran Desert; and the non-desert arid region areas (with greater than 10 inches annual precipitation) in the Great Basin arid region, Colorado Plateau, Mexican Plateau, and others. This arid region extends from the top of the North American Desert in Washington and Idaho southward into Mexico in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. The 'western arid region' is east of and (except for Mojave sky islands) discontiguous from the Mojave Desert, ^[10] unlike the southwestern Great Basin deserts adjacent with ecotones to the northern Mojave Desert.

See also

• Desert ecology
• Deserts and xeric shrublands - biome and ecoregions
• Deserts of California
• Great American Desert

References

1. ^ epa.gov: Level 1 Ecoregions
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ "Query Form For The United States And Its Territories". U.S. Board on Geographic Names. http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic. Retrieved 2010-05-18. ;
   • • "Carson Desert (856208)". Geographic Names Information System, U.S. Geological Survey. http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:856208. Retrieved 2010-05-18. 
4. ^ [2]
5. ^ [3]
6. ^ [4]
7. ^ [5]
8. ^ [6]
9. ^ (1953 Meigs criteria)
10. ^ "The World's Largest Desert". Geology and Earth Science. geology.com. http://geology.com/records/largest-desert.shtml. Retrieved 2010-04-25.