Ecosystem+Value+Desert

__**Natural resources found in deserts **__ Minerals  One of the most important natural resources found in deserts is mineral deposits. The arid climate is crucial to the formation, improvement, and preservation of important minerals. Ore is deposited throughout the soil at about sea level because of groundwater which drains it away from the sand. Over time as the build-up continues, the minerals are concentrated and can be mined. Another way that minerals are concentrated is when a pond or lake (which can be found in Oases throughout the desert) evaporates, leaving behind the minerals that were in the water. Common examples are gypsum, salt, and borates. There are 15 major minerals that are found in concentration in the western hemisphere and of these, 13 are found in deserts.

Valuable minerals that can be found in arid lands include copper in the United States, Chile, Peru, and Iran; iron and lead-zinc ore in Australia; chromite in Turkey; and gold, silver, and uranium deposits in Australia and the United States (H1). Beryllium, lithium, clays, mica, scoria, pumice, and other nonmetallic minerals and rocks can also be found in deserts. Sodium carbonate, sulfate, borate, nitrate, lithium, bromine, iodine, calcium, and strontium compounds come from sediments and near-surface brines formed by evaporation of inland bodies of water, often during geologically recent times (H1).





Fossil Fuels Fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are also commonly found in the desert. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and the state of Texas are known for their large oil and natural gas reserves (H5). While deserts are hardly the only biomes these substances are found, fossil fuels are commonly associated with deserts, in part because of the turmoil and instability in many of these oil exporting desert countries. 40% of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East where it has been fought over by local and foreign powers since oil had any importance (H4). Because fossil fuels originate from dead tiny organisms that were slowly covered and heated into crude, it seems odd that so much of it is found in what is today a desert. It is very strange that the Middle East which is a desert once used to be covered by an ocean. in ancient times, a couple million years ago, a sea called the Tethys existed where the middle east now is. many of the life forms which today are in the form of crude oil, probably lived in this ancient ocean.



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