deserts

1. Deserts What do you know?

2. Did you know? Deserts cover around 35% of the world’s surface and about 2 thirds Australia’s surface.

3. Picture a desert in your head Many of you may have a pictured a desert that was covered in sand, when actually the surface of deserts vary greatly. Some deserts are covered with sand dunes, some are rocky and mountainous, some are stony with light soil and some are covered in ice.

4. Antartica Sahara Gobi Atacama

5. Do you know what the world’s hottest desert is? If you answered the Sahara you are absolutely right! It covers an area of 9 million square kilometres, which makes it larger than the continent of Australia!!

6. Another fact The Atacama desert in South America is the driest hot desert in the world. Only a few times in a century do some small parts of the Atacama receive rain. The average monthly rainfall is 0.01 millimetre (mm). How many months would it take to fill an average250ml cup? Answer: 250 months or 20.8 years

7. and the facts continue The Gobi, Asia’s largest desert, is Mongolian for ‘place without water’

8. What is the world’s largest cold desert? Antarctica is the world’s largest desert and the world’s driest cold desert. Antarctica has no rainfall at all, but annual average snowfall is the equivalent of 50mm of rain fall.