Desert exploration

Deliberate and scientific exploration of deserts

Desert exploration is the deliberate and scientific exploration of deserts, the arid regions of the earth. It is only incidentally concerned with the culture and livelihood of native desert dwellers. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various Indigenous peoples of the Americas, were originally hunter gatherers. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara. Today, some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy. Many people think of deserts as consisting of extensive areas of billowing sand dunes because that is the way they are often depicted on TV and in films, but deserts do not always look like this. Across the world, around 20% of desert is sand, varying from only 2% in North America to 30% in Australia and over 45% in Central Asia. Where sand does occur, it is usually in large quantities in the form of sand sheets or extensive areas of dunes. through the western Sahara, toward the Niger River and present day Timbuktu. through the Tibesti mountains, toward Lake Chad and present day Nigeria
through the Nile river, toward present day Uganda. though the western coast of Africa, toward the Canary Islands and the Cape Verde islands. through the Red Sea, toward present day Somalia and perhaps Tanzania. Michael Asher & Mariantonietta Peru – made the first recorded crossing of the Sahara from west to east, by camel and on foot, from Nouakchott, Mauretania, to Abu Simbel, Egypt, 1986–87, a distance of 4500 miles Ref: The Modern Explorers. Thames & Hudson. London 2013 Michael Asher lived for 3 years with the Kababish nomads in the Sudan. Eva Dickson – was the first woman to cross the Sahara Desert by car. In 1932 she met the former spouse of Karen Blixen, Baron Bror von Blixen Finecke, in Kenya, and they became lovers. After her meeting with Blixen in 1932, she took a bet and drove by car from Nairobi to Stockholm in 1932, thus becoming the first woman to have crossed the Sahara by car. Heinrich Barth – crossed the Sahara during his travels in Africa and the Middle East during 1845–1847. James Richardson – explored the Sahara and Sudan he died in the notorious hamada (a stony desert) in the Western Sahara. Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs – German geographer. First person the cross Africa north to south. Named a place Regenfeld near Dakhla Oasis in southern Egypt after experiencing a rare occurrence of desert rain. Karl Alfred von Zittel German palaeontologist who accompanied Rohlfs. Henri Duveyrier – He undertook a number of fossil hunting explorations in the Sahara. Albert Félix de Lapparent – Explorer of the northern and western parts of the Sahara. Victor Loche – first identified the sand cat (Felis margarita) while exploring the North Sahara. Joseph Ritchie – sent to find the course of the River Niger and the location of Timbuktu. He died in Murzuk. Helen Thayer – 20th century walker and explorer. Jeremy Curl – youngest known European to walk across the Sahara from north to south. Explored areas of the Tanezrouft, Hoggar mountains and Adrar des Ifoghas, living with the indigenous Tuareg. Michiel Franken First man to ride a sidecar (BMW i8) through the sahara

Before the European exploration of North America, tribes of Native Americans, such as the Mohave (in the Mojave desert), the Chemehuevi (in the Great Basin desert), and the Quechan (in the Colorado desert) were hunter gatherers living in the California deserts. European explorers started exploring the deserts beginning in the 18th century. Francisco Garcés, a Franciscan friar, was the first explorer of the Colorado and Mojave deserts in 1776. Garcés recorded information about the original inhabitants of the deserts. Later, as American interests expanded into California, American explorers started probing the California deserts. Jedediah Smith travelled through the Great Basin and Mojave deserts in 1826, finally reaching the San Gabriel Mission. John C. Frémont explored the Great Basin, proving that water did not flow out of it to the ocean, and provided maps that the forty niners used to get to California.