Taklamakan
The Taklamakan Desert or Takla Makan (Traditional Chinese, 塔克拉瑪干沙漠 ; pinyin, Tǎkèlāmǎgān Shāmò or Taklimakan Shamo; Uyghur: Täklimakan Toghraqliri) is a large desert in Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. It is the second largest sand dune desert in the world (after Rub al-Jali), with dunes ranging from 100 to 300 m in height.
Etymology
The name is probably a loan to Uyghur from the Arabic word tark, which would mean "to abandon, leave alone, leave behind", + makan, "place". An alternative explanation derives the place name from the Turkic expression; taqlar makan that is, "place of ruins".
Qian Boquan, a historian at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, argues that Taklamakan means the land of poplar trees, since Takli is a derivative of the Turkish word Tohlak, which means "poplar". The syllable ma is a determiner of "great" and kan, is a modification of Old Persian kand; "country", "city" or "village". According to historical documents, cottonwoods were still very common in the Tarim Basin in the 6th century.
A popular etymology states that Takla Makan means: "enter and you will never come out", but this is considered wrong.
Description
The Taklamakan Desert has an area of 337,000 km2, making it slightly smaller than Germany. The desert is part of the Tarim Basin, which is 1,000 kilometers (621.4 mi) long and 400 kilometers (248.5 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and southern ends by two branches of the Silk Road, along which travelers tried to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the second largest quicksand desert in the world, with about 85% made up of quicksand dunes, ranking 17th in size in a ranking of the world's largest deserts. The height of the dunes ranges from 60 feet (18.3 m) to 300 feet (91.4 m). The few interruptions in this sea of sand are small patches of alluvial clay. Typically, the steeper sides of the dunes face away from the prevailing winds.
The main oases are Kasgar, Yarkand (on the Yarkand River) and Hotan (Hetian) in the southwest; Kuqa and Turfan, in the north; and Loulan and Dunhuang, in the east. The Yurungkash River (White Jade River), so named for the jade deposits found in it, runs through this desert.
Except for the east, it is surrounded by high mountains, for which reason very impetuous rivers descend from them. When they reach the edge of the desert, they have taken advantage of it and thus towns and cities have been born. By not consuming all the water, it was lost in the desert. At present, the Chinese civilization is creating systems for optimal water use.
In the sands of this desert, archaeological remains and several mummies dating back more than 4,000 years have been found. Most of the mummies have European features, which suggests that they were Tocarians, a people who inhabited this area between the first millennium BC and the first millennium AD.
Later, the Taklamakan was inhabited by people of Eurasian origin. With the Tang dynasty, the Chinese slowly extended their control over the oases in order to control the silk road through central Asia. Periods of Chinese control were interrupted by periods of Mughal and Tibetan control. The current population consists of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in the villages while the population in major cities is Han majority.
Climate
Because it lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, Taklamakan has a cold desert climate. Due to its relative proximity to the cold to frigid air masses of Siberia, extreme temperatures are recorded in winter, sometimes well below -20°C (-4°F), while in summer they can rise to 40°. C (104°F). During the 2008 episode of winter storms in China, it was reported that the Taklamakan was covered, for the first time in its history, completely with a thin layer of snow reaching 4 centimeters (1.6 in), with a temperature -26.1 °C (-15 °F) at some observatories.
Its extreme position in the interior, practically in the heart of Asia and thousands of kilometers from any body of open water, explains the variation in diurnal temperatures.
Kara Burán
The Kara Burán, the “black sand storm” is notorious. It can remove tons of sand and last for days or even weeks. It got its name because it often darkens the sky. Kara Buran season is from February to June; the sandstorm comes every three to five days, mostly from the northeast. Dust hazes that last for weeks can significantly reduce solar radiation. Since many caravans and probably even entire cities have already fallen victim to it, it has been associated with many myths. Locals tell the legend of a Chinese emperor's army buried under the sand of a 250-meter-high dune.
Oasis
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The Molcha (Moleqie) River forms a vast alluvial fan at the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, as it flows out of the Altyn-Tagh Mountains and into the desert in western Qiemo County. The left part appears blue from the water that flows in many streams. The photo is taken in May, when the river is full of meltwater.
The Taklamakan Desert has very little water, making it dangerous to cross. The merchant caravans of the Silk Road stopped to rest in the prosperous oasis cities. It lies in close proximity to many ancient civilizations: to the northwest is the Amu Darya basin, to the southwest the mountain passes of Afghanistan lead to Iran and India, to the east is China, and even to the north are ancient cities like Almaty.
The main oasis cities, irrigated by mountain rains, were Kashgar, Miran, Niya, Yarkand and Khotan (Hetian) to the south, Kuqa and Turpan to the north, and Loulan and Dunhuang to the east[12] Now, many, like Miran and Gaochang, are ruined cities in sparsely inhabited areas of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.
Archaeological treasures found in its sand-buried ruins point to Tocharian, early Hellenistic, Indian, and Buddhist influences. Its treasures and dangers have been vividly described by Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin, Albert von Le Coq, and Paul Pelliot. Mummies dating back some 4,000 years have been found in the region.
Later, the Taklamakan was inhabited by Turkic peoples. Beginning in the Han Dynasty, the Chinese sporadically extended their control to the oasis cities of the Taklamakan Desert to control the important Silk Road trade through Central Asia. Periods of Chinese rule were interspersed with the rule of the Turkic, Mongolian, and Tibetan peoples. The current population is largely made up of Uyghur Turks and ethnic Han people.
Flora and Fauna
Flora
At the foot of the high mountains there are numerous oases with rich vegetation. Meltwater from the Kunlun Shan and Tian Shan mountain ranges forms, among other things, the Tarim River. This flows along the edge of the desert in an east-west direction, where it allows agricultural use on the very fertile loess.
Areas rich in vegetation are surrounded by a belt of sparse vegetation. This belt of vegetation protects to a great extent against the expansion of the desert. However, the increasing use of plants for animal feed and firewood threaten to destroy the shelterbelt. What is devastating about existing over-use compared to moderate use is that the very dry topsoil makes natural regeneration nearly impossible.
Examples of plants in the belt include Tamarix ramosissima and Populus euphratica (Euphrates Poplar) trees, which were examined by Göttingen researchers. The Tamarix ramosissima grows in saline and alkaline soils and has deep roots. The plant excretes salts through the scale leaves.
The desert is made up almost entirely of moving sand, so it has hardly any vegetation. When the movement of the sand slows down, the dunes can be colonized by certain plant species such as Alhagi sparsifolia, Scorzonera divaricata or Karelinia caspica. In peripheral areas with a more stable substrate, vegetation can cover up to 5% of the ground. The main shrubs are Ephedra przewalskii and Nitraria sphaerocarpus.
Wildlife
Because of its inhospitality to humans, the Taklamakan Desert still supports small populations of animals that have become extinct in the rest of China, such as the Bactrian camel and the Asian wild ass.
In the Lop Nor, fishing with a canoe is practiced, and it is home to a large number of waterfowl, depending on the time of year: seagulls, terns, swans, ducks, herons, etc.
Scientific exploration
This desert was explored by several scholars, including Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk from the 7th century, and, in the 20th century, archaeologist Aurel Stein.
Atmospheric studies have shown that dust from the Taklamakan drifts across the Pacific, where it contributes to cloud formation over the western United States. In addition, traveling dust redistributes minerals from the Taklamakan to the western US through precipitation. Studies have shown that a specific class of mineral found in the dust, known as K-feldspar, especially triggers the ice formation. K-feldspar is particularly susceptible to corrosion from acidic atmospheric contamination, such as nitrates and phosphates; exposure to these components reduces the ability of dust to trigger the formation of water droplets.