Desert exploration is the deliberate and scientific exploration ofdeserts, thearid 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 theBushmen in theKalahari, theAborigines in Australia and variousIndigenous peoples of the Americas, were originallyhunter-gatherers. Manytrade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across theSahara Desert, and traditionally were used bycaravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers ofslaves 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 ofsolar 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,[1] but deserts do not always look like this.[2] 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.[3] Where sand does occur, it is usually in large quantities in the form of sand sheets or extensive areas ofdunes.[3] The following sections list deserts around the world, and their explorers. Expeditions are listed by their leaders; details of other expedition members may be found via the links.
The Romans organized expeditions to cross theSahara desert with five different routes. All these expeditions were supported bylegionaries and had mainly a commercial purpose. One of the main reasons of the explorations was to get gold using the camel to transport it.:[4]
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 theSahara during his travels in Africa and the Middle East during 1845–1847.
James Richardson – explored the Sahara and Sudan he died in the notorioushamada (a stony desert) in the Western Sahara.
Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs – German geographer. First person the cross Africa north to south. Named a place Regenfeld nearDakhla Oasis in southern Egypt after experiencing a rare occurrence of desert rain.
Arabian Desert has been populated since prehistory.Rub' al Khali or theEmpty Quarter in its remote center is one of the largest continuous bodies ofsand in the world. It was recently explored by Europeans:
St. John Philby in 1932: first documented journeys by Westerners
Wilfred Thesiger in 1946–50 crossed it several times and mapped large parts of it
In June 1950, aUS Air Force expedition crossed the Rub' al Khali fromDhahran, Saudi Arabia, to central Yemen and back[5] in trucks to collect specimens for theSmithsonian Institution and to test desert survival procedures.[6]
Youngho Nam (Korean) in 2013 crossed on foot 1,000 km from "Salalah, Oman" to "Liwa, United Arab Emirates"
Gobi Desert has a long history of human habitation, mostly by nomadic peoples. The Gobi Desert as a whole was known only very imperfectly to outsiders, as information was confined to observations by individual travelers engaging in their respective itineraries across the desert. Among the European and American explorers who contributed to the understanding of the Gobi, the most important were the following:[7]
Cecil Madigan – expedition 1939 across the Simpson Desert
Warren Bonython and Charles McCubbin were the first North to South traverse on foot in 1973. They pulled a cart with supplies and used two air drops of water and supplies.
Louis-Philippe Loncke – unsupported expedition 2008 across the Simpson Desert on foot from North to South
Before the European exploration of North America, tribes of Native Americans, such as theMohave (in the Mojave desert), theChemehuevi (in the Great Basin desert), and theQuechan (in the Colorado desert) werehunter-gatherers living in the California deserts.[11] European explorers started exploring the deserts beginning in the 18th century.Francisco Garcés, aFranciscan friar, was the first explorer of the Colorado and Mojave deserts in 1776.[12] 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 theSan Gabriel Mission.[13][14]John C. Frémont explored the Great Basin, proving that water did not flow out of it to the ocean, and provided maps that theforty-niners used to get to California.[15]
^"Romance Gone, Given Divorce".The Evening News. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. July 28, 1926. p. 1. RetrievedOctober 4, 2016 – viaNewspapers.com.In 1902, while Lesdain was leading an expedition through the Gobi desert, he crossed the path of another explorer. This latter proved to be Miss Mailey who, dressed in men's clothes, commanded her expedition with assurance borne of the safe culmination of many adventures.
^Weiss, Stephen C. (May 1999). "The John C. Fremont '1842, 1843–'44 Report' and Map".Journal of Government Information.26 (3):297–313.doi:10.1016/S1352-0237(99)00031-3.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gobi".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 165.