Dasht-e Loot
| Dasht-e Loot (دشت لوت) | |
| Desert | |
 As seen from space.
|
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| Country | Iran |
|---|---|
| Length | 480 km (298 mi) |
| Width | 320 km (199 mi) |
| Area | 51,800 km2 (20,000 sq mi) |
| Biome | Desert |
  Location within Iran.
|
|
Dasht-e Loot (Persian: دشت لوت, "Emptiness Desert"), also spelled Dasht-i-Loot and known as the Loot Desert, is a large salt desert in Kerman Province, Iran and is the world's 25th largest desert. The surface of the sand there has been measured at temperatures as high as 70.7 °C (159 °F),[1][2] and it is one of the world's driest and hottest places.
Contents
Description
Iran is climatically part of the Afro-Asian belt of deserts, which stretches from the Cape Verde islands off West Africa all the way to Mongolia near Beijing, China. The patchy, elongated, light-colored feature in the foreground (parallel to the mountain range) is the northernmost of the Dasht dry lakes that stretch southward 300 kilometers (190 mi). In near-tropical deserts, elevated areas capture most precipitation. As a result, the desert is largely an abiotic zone.
Iran's geography consists of a plateau surrounded by mountains and divided into drainage basins. Dasht-e Loot is one of the largest of these desert basins, 480 kilometers (300 mi) long and 320 kilometers (200 mi) wide,[3] and is considered to be one of the driest places on Earth.[4][5][6]
Area of the desert is about 51,800 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi).[7] The other large basin is the Dasht-e Kavir. During the spring wet season, water briefly flows down from the Kerman mountains, but it soon dries up, leaving behind only rocks, sand, and salt.
The eastern part of Dasht-e Loot is a low plateau covered with salt flats. In contrast, the center has been sculpted by the wind into a series of parallel ridges and furrows, extending over 150 km (93 mi) and reaching 75 metres (246 ft) in height.[3] This area is also riddled with ravines and sinkholes. The southeast is a vast expanse of sand, like a Saharan erg, with dunes 300 metres (980 ft) high, among the tallest in the world.[3]
Hottest land surface
Measurements of MODIS (Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) installed on NASA's Aqua satellite from 2003 to 2010 testify that the hottest land surface on Earth is located in Dasht-e Loot and land surface temperatures reach here 70.7 °C (159.3 °F), though the air temperature is cooler.[4][5][6][8][9][10] Precision of measurements is 0.5 K to 1 K.[11][12]
The hottest part of Dasht-e Loot is Gandom Beryan, a large plateau covered in dark lava, approximately 480 square kilometres (190 sq mi) in area.[13] According to a local legend, the name (in translation from Persian — "Toasted wheat") originates from an accident where a load of wheat was left in the desert which was then scorched by the heat in a few days.
See also
Further reading
- Sykes, Percy. A History of Persia. Macmillan and Company: London (1921). pp. 60–62.
References
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Satellites seek global hot spots / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Temperature of Earth
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Images of the Day - Images - redOrbit
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ The Hottest Spot on Earth : Image of the Day
- ↑ Weather Iran (Persian)
- ↑ PressTV Iran[dead link]
- ↑ MOD 11 - Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity, MODIS Website
- ↑ Zhengming Wan (April 1999) MODIS Land-Surface Temperature Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (LST ATBD) Version 3.3
- ↑ A Journey To Earth's Hottest Point
External links
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