Sunset, Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree National Park, CA (4)
Twentynine Palms, CA (Riverside County)
Two distinct desert ecosystems, the Mojave and the Colorado, come together in Joshua Tree National Park. A fascinating variety of plants and animals make their homes in a land sculpted by strong winds and occasional torrents of rain. Dark night skies, a rich cultural history, and surreal geologic features add to the wonder of this vast wilderness in southern California. (1)
The Mojave is in what some geographers call the Basin and Range Province, a landscape of alternating mountain ranges and their adjacent basins. Common rock substrates include Precambrian gneisses and granites. Slopes are often composed of metamorphic rocks, such as gneisses.
Mojave Desert vegetation is dominated by low, widely spaced shrubs. Vegetation in the desert’s northern half closely resembles that of the Great Basin Desert, as that in the southern half does the Sonoran. However, nearly one quarter of all Mojave Desert plants are endemics. Synonymous with the Mojave Desert is the Joshua tree. Other endemics are Parry saltbush and Mojave sage. A more widely distributed plant, the creosote bush, dominates much of the land surface, often in close association with white bursage. (1)
References (1) Joshua Tree NPS www.nps.gov/jotr/learn/nature/deserts.htm
Sunset, Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree National Park, CA (4)
Twentynine Palms, CA (Riverside County)
Two distinct desert ecosystems, the Mojave and the Colorado, come together in Joshua Tree National Park. A fascinating variety of plants and animals make their homes in a land sculpted by strong winds and occasional torrents of rain. Dark night skies, a rich cultural history, and surreal geologic features add to the wonder of this vast wilderness in southern California. (1)
The Mojave is in what some geographers call the Basin and Range Province, a landscape of alternating mountain ranges and their adjacent basins. Common rock substrates include Precambrian gneisses and granites. Slopes are often composed of metamorphic rocks, such as gneisses.
Mojave Desert vegetation is dominated by low, widely spaced shrubs. Vegetation in the desert’s northern half closely resembles that of the Great Basin Desert, as that in the southern half does the Sonoran. However, nearly one quarter of all Mojave Desert plants are endemics. Synonymous with the Mojave Desert is the Joshua tree. Other endemics are Parry saltbush and Mojave sage. A more widely distributed plant, the creosote bush, dominates much of the land surface, often in close association with white bursage. (1)
References (1) Joshua Tree NPS www.nps.gov/jotr/learn/nature/deserts.htm