WHAT RESOURCES DO WE GET FROM DESERTS?
Deserts are arid biomes that cover close to one-third of the earth’s surface. From their sunbaked sand dunes, ancient rock shields and barren salt flats to the ice-encrusted continent of Antarctica, all deserts have one thing in common, a lack of water. Less than 10-inches of rain, snow, mist and fog falls from the sky annually in deserts. Due to this incredibly dry atmosphere with minimal precipitation and a high rate of moisture evaporation, many deserts are hotbeds of natural resources.
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Although a desert is an extreme environment with often scarce and unpredictable resources for its inhabitants, beneath its surface lie huge reserves of non-renewable natural resources such as crude oil, natural gas, iron ore, and many
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The industrial phase of Death Valley, a desert valley in the northern Mojave Desert bordering the Great Basin Desert, began with the discovery of borax near the mouth of Furnace Creek in 1881.
Over the course of six years, from 1883 to 1889, millions of pounds of borax were hauled by colossal teams of 18 mules with two horses in the lead, pulling massive wagons with seven-foot high wheels, each laden with tons of borax. The 165-mile trip took over 10 days each way from the mines at Harmony Borax Works in Furnace Creek to the railhead near Mojave, California. Men called muleskinners and their draft teams endured harsh conditions, traversing rugged terrain. This legendary story represented the grit, perseverance and resilience of the Old West and inspired the name of the product, “20-Mule Team Borax”, the star of a successful advertising campaign that ran for 40 years on the radio and later television western series, Death Valley Days. Since that time billions of dollars of the mineral salt have been mined in the Death Valley
In the book, The Worst Hard Times, author Timothy Egan explains the hard times that the families in the high plains experienced during the years near the Great Depression. Egan writes about "The Great American Dust Bowl" which originally was a place of lushes thick grass where the bison could graze and where the Indians in the area could hunt, until Texas cowboys took over the land for big cattle drives making the area a huge ranch. During the years that these cowboys worked the land, they noticed that before they started the cattle runs, the grass that was in the area kept the top soil in place on times of drought. Now that the cattle had been grazing and the cowboys had been working the area, the grass was not prospering creating huge dust storms when the wind blew and there was no rain or plants to keep it down. The dust storms posed a worry to the ranch owners that they would lose cattle and therefore lose profit that they decided to divide up and sell the world's biggest cattle
The 1930’s consisted of severe drought and dust storms that prevailed across US plains, creating what is known today as the Dust bowl. This environmental disaster turned soil to dust that winds picked up and spread into dark clouds over the dry regions. Thus, creating suffer endearing conditions for families, their horses, and cattle. In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan describes the affected areas and shares the tragic stories of settlers who lived through this time of suffering. Though this devastation is widely viewed as a horrible climatic event, it is important to understand the human ignorance largely responsible for causing the suffered disaster.
They shoveled loose dirt into boxes then ran it under water causing heavy minerals, like gold or silver, to sink to the bottom; this worked well in finding loose gold that washed out of the rocks. Long drives was the transportation of cattle; the job of cowboys, from ranges into cow towns.
“ Some 850 million tons of topsoil blew away in 1935 alone. "Unless something is done," a government report predicted, "the western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert. " The government 's response included deploying Civilian Conservation Corps workers to plant shelter belts; encouraging farmers to try new techniques like contour plowing to minimize erosion; establishing conservation districts; and using federal money in the Plains for everything from grasshopper control to outright purchases of failed farms.
During the Dust Bowl some people made the decision to stay at their farms. Huge drifts of dirt piled up on homesteaders’ doors, came in the cracks of windows and came down from the ceilings. Barnyards and pastures were buried in dirt. After about 850 million tons of topsoil was blown away in 1935 alone. The government responded to this by saying “Unless something is done, the western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert.”
Within a decade, the farmer have been through the hopeful moments of prosperity and the hopeless times of hunger. Other migrating families kept traveling to find jobs. The leading historian of the Dust Bowl, Donald Worster, described it in the following way: “In no other instance was there greater or more sustained damage to the American land, and there have been few times when so much tragedy was visited on its inhabitants. Not even the Depression was more devastating, economically” [2].
"Oh Lord How manifold are thy works! In wisdom Hast thou made them all: The earth is full of thy riches"( Psalms 104:24). The Grand Canyon is known to be one of the most fascinating places on earth. The Grand Canyon is outstanding; however one must see it to believe it. Over five million people visit the canyon ever year.
In the 1930’s, the Dust Bowl caused huge damage to the Great Plains region of the United States. It was an extreme dust storms which swept across the Southern Great Plains area. At the same time, people suffered by a long term drought. The soil was very dry and winds carried off topsoil. Although people tried to stay and live their homeland, many people decided that they cannot do farm work and live their land.
The interview of LeRoy Hankel, who was a farmer during the dustbowl, really stood out to me because his words painted an image in my head. In his interview, Hankel recalls his time on the farm during the dust storm by saying that “it was just a cloud coming right over, that’s what it looked like. And it was all black.”
Mining was the first profession that started the state up and for decades after continued to do so. For example, in article ten section five sub section three of the Nevada Constitution it states, “Each patented mine or mining claim must be assessed and taxed as other real property is assessed and taxed, except that no value may be attributed to any mineral known or believed to underlie it, and no value may be attributed to the surface of a mine or claim if one hundred dollars’ worth of labor has been actually performed on the mine or claim during the year preceding the assessment” (Bowers 113). This is to inspire people and companies to seek out mining privileges rather than
Not every town has its roots firmly entrenched in the era of cowboys, prairie wagons, and western expansion, but homes for sale in Flower Mound, TX rest on ground that was once part of the Wild, Wild West. Not every town gets to boast existence because of the likes of Sam Houston, and not every town contains what may have been an ancient Native American burial ground, but Flower Mound does, and it has a rich history to share. According to the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), Flower Mound was founded when Sam Houston quelled local raids on settlers trying to pass through the area. The year was 1844, and tensions between expansionists and Native Americans were running high.
A drought is an occurrence where there is very little rainfall, which results in a shortage of water. Drought can last up to ten years in certain places, especially desert areas. Droughts are extremely difficult to predict, and produce cracked land. They are very dangerous in places with little food and little water. Droughts can also affect farmers, due to it being so hot that their plants die.
For about thirty to forty years preceding this time phase a cattle trade could be initiated with a tiny herd of cattle. The cattle were then fed on fresh grass in the open grasslands and thus a bigger heard was built subsequently. Ranchers used to mark some geographical boundaries to be their own but many a times the cattle graze around wherever they preferred. Cowboys too used to work for the rancher groups but they used to be totally free to create brands for their maverick calves so that they can identify them as their own. The cowboys thus made herds of their own by making new brands.
When the wind begins to nip at your face, when the sky becomes a light grey, when all life seems to be hidden away, one knows that there is a high chance of snow. Plants seem to lose their color and become as barren as that of the sky. Animals and humans seem to burrow up from the cold weather outside. But one can only anticipate the white flurry substance coming from the sky. Snow is a magical thing.
Weathering and erosion are two processes that sort of shape Earth’s ground and rocks. Weathering is either a mechanical or chemical process that breaks down or shapes rocks, while erosion transports the leftovers of weathering, away. Understanding these processes helps us understand the way lakes, rivers, mountains, shorelines, canyons, and all sorts of other things were formed. For example the Grand Canyon was formed by erosion created from the Colorado River. It is very important to understand how these forces occur to understand the subject completely.