1) The Chang Tang Desert High, Cold Desert Chang Tang is the Tibetan word for “northern plain.” So, it won’t come as a surprise to learn that the Chang Tang is located at the northern part of the Plateau of Tibet. A plateau is an area of flat land that is raised above the surrounding land. The northern area of the Chang Tang is a high desert. Some of the land is as high as 17,000 feet above sea level. The desert has high elevation, temperatures here are very cold in the winter, and it isn’t much warmer in the summer, when nighttime temperatures generally stay around freezing. Some of the highest mountains in the world, including the Himalaya, surround the Chang Tang region. As a result, the desert lies in the rain shadow, the side of a mountain that is usually dry because precipitation falls on the opposite side. You won’t need your umbrella in the Chang Tang. Only about five to ten inches of precipitation— mostly snow and hail—fall each year. This precipitation falls mainly in the summer months. A Harsh Landscape Looking around the Chang Tang, you won’t see many trees or shrubs. The soil is too poor to support them. Permafrost, a permanently frozen layer of soil, lies under much of the northern end of the Chang Tang, and very few plants grow there. In the south, where there is more participation, grasslands stretch for miles and miles. For thousands of years the remote location and harsh weather of the Chang Tang have discouraged people from settling there. The desert’s ecosystem, which is the community of living things and non-living things that work together in their environment, remained nearly undisturbed until recent years. The Chang Tang Nature Reserve Who would want to create a nature reserve in such a remote part of the world? Dr. George Schaller thought this was just the place for one. He is a wildlife biologist, a scientist who studies the way in which plants and animals live and grow. Schaller spent many years exploring the Chang Tang region. He discovered that hunting was beginning to threaten the wildlife there. Establishing a nature reserve was one way to try to protect these animals. Together with the Chinese government, Schaller helped create the Chang Tang Nature Reserve in southern areas of the Chang Tang in 1993. At 115, 500 square miles the reserve is so large that the state of Arizona would fit inside it. It is the second largest reserve in the world, Greenland National Park in Greenland. The Chang Tang Nature Reserve includes vast grasslands and is dotted with hills and snow-capped mountains. There are also large, salty lakes. No major rivers are found in the reserve, making fresh water scarce. Adapted for educational purposes from Reading Expeditions, East Asia: Geography and Environments, National Georgraphic Learning, 2007 2) The Taklamakan Desert The Taklamakan (tah kla muh KAHN), like the Chang Tang, is considered a cold desert despite its high temperatures in the summer. Located in western China, it is bordered by the Kunlun Mountains in the south and the Tian Shan in the north. As in the Chang Tang, a rain shadow effect from the mountains that surround the Taklamakan keeps most moisture from reaching this area. “The Sea of Death” Some people call the Taklamakan “the sea of death.” What is so frightening about this desert to give it such a name? The Taklamakan is 130,000 square miles of sand, an area almost as big as the state of Montana. Sand dunes rise as high as 600 feet. Blinding sandstorms can last for days, and travelers can easily get lost. The Taklamakan is so dry that rain can evaporate even before it hits the ground. People, plants, and animals do not live in the center of this desert because there is no water at all. With its size and harsh environment you can imagine how someone might go into the Taklamakan, never to return! Liquid Gold Scientists have discovered oil in the Taklamakan Desert. China estimates that there are 74 billion barrels of oil deep under the sand. That is three times the oil reserve of the United States. In the mid-1990s, China built a road deep into the desert to access these oil reserves. More than 360 oil wells were drilled. Workers faced brutal building conditions. The hottest daytime temperature recorded was 104 degrees Fahrenheit and the coldest was -22 degrees Fahrenheit. “My men worked on both of those days,” Said Xu Fu Chen, a manager of some of the wells, “the drilling always goes on.” The Taklamakan could change China’s economy. This natural resource could provide China with enough oil to support its economy without having to import oil for a long time. Adapted for educational purposes from Reading Expeditions, East Asia: Geography and Environments, National Georgraphic Learning, 2007 3) The Great Gobi The Gobi is the largest desert in Asia. It stretches about 500,00 square miles across China and Mongolia. It is similar to the Change Tang and Taklamakan because it too is a cold desert. Temperatures in the Gobi can range from 113 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. However, the Gobi is also different from the other deserts, in that its landscape consists mostly of gravelly plains and small basins. A Treasure Chest of Dinosaur Bones How would you feel if you found something 80 million years old? Probably pretty excited. That is just how a team of United States and Mongolian researchers felt in 1996 when they found one of the world’s richest dinosaur fossil beds. Fossils are the remains of plants and animals preserved in rock. These dinosaur fossils were discovered in the Mongolian Gobi, at a place called Ukhaa Tolgod. Dinosaurs called theropods lived at this site millions of years ago. Researchers think that the theropods may have nested here. Evidence shows that some theropods may have developed into modern birds. During their dig, the researchers uncovered the skeleton of an oviraptor, a dinosaur belonging to the theropod family. The oviraptor was a 12-foot-long ostrich-like dinosaur. It was found 150 feet up in a cliff wall, buried in a hill of sand. When the skeleton was uncovered, researchers found it sitting on a nest of 20 eggs. The researchers believe that while these dinosaurs were nesting, tremendous sandstorms or collapsing dunes covered this nesting area, burying them. Over time their bones turned into fossils. Adapted for educational purposes from Reading Expeditions, East Asia: Geography and Environments, National Geographic Learning, 2007