Sonoran Desert

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Map of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.
Mountains in the Sonoran Desert
File:Dusk on Desert 3d.jpg
Anaglyph (3D photograph) of Saguaro National Park at dusk.

The Sonoran Desert (sometimes called the Gila Desert after the Gila River or the Low Desert in opposition to the higher Mojave Desert) is a North American desert which straddles part of the United States-Mexico border and covers large parts of the U.S. states of Arizona and California and the Mexican state of Sonora. It is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 120,000 square miles (311,000 km²). The desert contains an incredible array of unique plants and animals, such as the saguaro cactus that can live to be 250 years old and the kangaroo rat that never needs to drink water. On January 17, 2001, 496,337 acres (2,008 km²) of the Sonoran Desert was set aside as the Sonoran Desert National Monument for the purpose of enhancing resource protection.

The Sonoran Desert wraps around the northern end of the Gulf of California, from northeastern Baja California through southeastern California and southwestern Arizona to western Sonora. It is bounded on the west by the Peninsular Ranges, which separate it from the California chaparral and woodlands and Baja California desert ecoregions of the Pacific slope. To the north, the Sonoran Desert transitions to the cold-winter Mojave, Great Basin, and Colorado Plateau deserts. To the east, the deserts transition to the coniferous Arizona Mountains forests and Sierra Madre Occidental forests at higher elevations. The Sonoran-Sinaloan transition subtropical dry forest marks the transition from the Sonoran Desert to the tropical dry forests of Sinaloa.

The desert's subregions include the Colorado Desert and Yuma Desert. In the 1951 publication, Vegetation of the Sonoran Desert, Forrest Shreve divided the Sonoran Desert into seven regions according to characteristic vegetation: Lower Colorado Valley, Arizona Upland, Plains of Sonora, Foothills of Sonora, Central Gulf Coast, Vizcaino Region, and Magdalena Region. (see An Overview of the Sonoran Desert, external link below). Many ecologists now consider Shreve's Vizcaino and Magdalena regions, which lie on the western side of the Baja California Peninsula, to be a separate ecoregion, the Baja California desert.

Ecology of the Sonoran Desert

The Sonoran Desert includes 60 mammal species, 350 bird species, 20 amphibian species, 100+ reptile species, 30 native fish species, and more than 2,000 native plant species. The desert is also home to many cultures with some seventeen Native American cultures, as well as Latino, Chinese, Anglo, Arabic, and African immigrant culture.

Plant Ecology

The Sonoran Desert includes such plants from the agave family, palm family, cactus family, legume family, and many others. Most plants not only survive the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert, but they actually thrive. Many have evolved to have specialized adaptations to the desert climate. To endure the intense sun and scarce rainfall, cacti have thick, waterproof skins to prevent water loss, as well as shallow roots that sprawl horizontally going just three inches deep to capture moisture over a greater surface area. Both the saguaro and the world’s largest cacti, the cardon, have expandable trunks to store as much water whenever it is available. When water is scarce, their trunks then contract.

Colorado Desert

The Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of California and the northeastern portion of the Mexican state of Baja California. It encompasses approximately 2,500 sq mi (40,000 km²) east of Los Angeles and San Diego, extending from the San Bernardino Mountains east and southeast to the Colorado River, from which it takes its name.

The region is essentially the northwest extension of the Sonoran Desert to the southeast. The region includes the heavily-irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys on the north and south side of the Salton Sea respectively. It is crossed by several mountain ranges, including the San Jacinto, Santa Rosa, Little San Bernardino, and Chocolate mountains. It is also dominated by the San Andreas Transform Fault System. It is a pull-apart basin, a baby mid-oceanic ridge.

Joshua Tree National Park is located on the northern edge of the region and includes many of the unique species and habitats of the region. The Colorado Desert encompasses the eastern part of the park and features natural gardens of creosote bush, ocotillo, and cholla cactus. The Little San Bernardino Mountains run through the southwest edge of the park. There are over 250 species of bird in the park including resident desert birds such as the Greater Roadrunner and Cactus Wren as well as Mockingbirds, Le Conte's Thrasher, Verdin, and Gambel's Quail.

Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument, created in October 2,000, covers an area of 272,000 acres encompassing much of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains along the western side of the region. Five different climate zones exist here, from desert to pine forest and to arctic pine at the highest elevation. It is home to more than 500 plant and animal species including the Peninsular bighorn sheep.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California and second largest state park in the United States, (after Adirondack State Park in New York). It covers 600,000 acres (2,400 km²) from the edge of the coastal mountains east of San Diego to the Salton Sea and south almost to the US-Mexico border. The park is named after Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish word borrego, or Bighorn Sheep. The park features washes, wildflowers, palm groves, cacti, ocotillo, and sweeping vistas. Visitors may also have the chance to see greater roadrunner, golden eagles, kit foxes, mule deer, and bighorn sheep as well as iguanas, chuckwallas, and the red diamond rattlesnake. With mountains all around, the highest are to the north—the Santa Rosa Mountains. The mountains are a wilderness, with no paved roads in or out or through. They have the only all-year-flowing watercourse in the park. They are the home of the peninsular bighorn sheep, often called the Desert Bighorn. Few park visitors ever see them; the sheep are justly wary. A patient few observers each year see and count them, to learn how this endangered species is coping with human encroachment.

Yuma Desert

The Yuma Desert is a lower-elevation section of the Sonoran Desert in the Salton basin. The desert contains areas of sparse vegetation and has notable areas of sand dunes. With an average rainfall less than 8 inches each year, this is among the harshest deserts in North America. Human presence is sparse throughout, the largest town being Yuma, Arizona.

The desert includes the lower-elevation parts of the southwestern corner of Arizona, extending west to the Colorado River. On the other side of the river, in California, is the Low Desert region of the Sonoran Desert, also referred to as the Colorado Desert. Though the two regions are separated only by the Colorado River, there are numerous species of plant and animals that live only on one side or the other, such as the saguaro cactus, which occurs only east of the river. The Yuma Desert also includes the sandy plains of western Sonora, going all the way to the head of the Gulf of California, then an inland strip reaching into the central Sonoran interior.

Vegetation in the Yuma Desert is dominated by the Creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), which is widespread. The saguaro cactus Carnegiea gigantea and the ocotillo Fouquieria splendens are common on the bajadas, while many of the desert trees found are restricted to dry watercourses; these include palo verdes Parkinsonia, the desert willow Chilopsis linearis, ironwood Olneya tesota, and smoke trees Psorothamnus spinosus.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is located in this desert, it is the only place in the United States where the organ pipe cactus grows wild. Also found here are the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. The Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1939 to protect bighorn sheep, is located along 56 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border, and covers 860,010 acres—larger than the land area of the state of Rhode Island. There were 803,418 acres preserved in 1990 as the Cabeza Prieta Refuge Wilderness.

Gila River

The most significant river in the Yuma Desert is the Gila River of Arizona. It is a 630-mile- (1,014-km)-long tributary of the Colorado River. It rises in western New Mexico, in Sierra County on the western slope of continental divide in the Black Range. It flows southwest to the Gila National Forest and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, then westward into Arizona, past the city of Safford, and along the southern slope of the Gila Mountains. It emerges from the mountains into the valley southeast of Phoenix, where it crosses the Gila River Indian Reservation as an intermittent stream, due to its use as a water source. West of Phoenix, it turns abruptly southward along the Gila Bend Mountains, then abruptly westward again near the town of Gila Bend, Arizona. It flows southwestward and joins the Colorado near Yuma, Arizona.

The Gila is one of the largest desert rivers in the world. It and its chief tributary, the Salt River, would both be perennial streams carrying large volumes of water, but irrigation and municipal water diversions turn both into largely dry rivers. Below Phoenix to the Colorado River, the Gila is largely a trickle or dry, as is the lower Salt from Granite Reef Diversion Dam downstream to the Gila. The Gila used to be navigable by small craft from its mouth to near the Arizona-New Mexico border. The width varied from 150 to 1,200 feet with a depth from 2 to 40 feet.

After the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, the river served as the border between the United States and Mexico until the 1853 Gadsden Purchase extended U.S. territory south of the Gila.

A band of Pima (autonym "Akimel O'odham", river people), the Hila Akimel O'odham (Gila River People), have lived on the banks of the Gila River since before the arrival of Spanish explorers. Their traditional way of life (himdagĭ, sometimes rendered in English as Him-dak) was and is centered at the river, which is considered holy. Traditionally, sand from the banks of the river is used as an exfoliant when bathing (often in rainstorms, especially during the monsoon).

In the GRIC (Gila River Indian Community), the traditional way of life has generally been better preserved than in the SRPMIC (Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community). Some speculate this may be due to the fact that the Gila River, a central aspect of the traditional way of life, still flows through the reservation year-round (although at times as an intermittent stream), while the Salt River does not.

Sonoran Desert National Monument

Sonoran Desert National Monument is located in the U.S. state of Arizona. Created by Presidential proclamation on January 17, 2001, the 496,337 acre (2,008 km²) monument is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management already managed the lands, however under monument status, the level of protection and preservation of resources is enhanced. Sonoran Desert National Monument protects but a small portion of the Sonoran Desert, which is 120,000 square miles (311,000 km²), and extends well into California and the country of Mexico. The North Maricopa Mountains, South Maricopa Mountains, and the Table Top Wildernesses protect the richest regions of desert habitat from any future development.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is one of the most visited attractions in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1952, it combines the attractions of a zoo, museum, and botanical garden. Its focus is the plants and animals that live in the Sonoran Desert, and it was a pioneer in the creation of naturalistic enclosures for its animals. The Center for Sonoran Desert Studies, founded in 2005, conducts the educational and scientific functions of the Museum and is a hub for research, education and conservation of the Sonoran Desert. Over 500,000 people visit the museum each year.

Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert

San Xavier del Bac

The Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert are a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholic Jesuits and other orders to spread the Christian doctrine among the local Native Americans, but with the added benefit of giving Spain a toehold in the frontier lands of its colony of New Spain. The missions are in an area of the Sonoran Desert called "Pimería Alta," or "Upper Pima Country." It is now divided between the Mexican state of Sonora and the U.S. state of Arizona.


Father Kino

From 1493, the Kingdom of Spain had maintained a number of missions throughout Nueva España (New Spain, consisting of Mexico and portions of what today are the Southwestern United States) in order to facilitate colonization of these lands.

In the Spring of 1687, a Jesuit missionary named Father Eusebio Francisco Kino lived and worked with the Native Americans in the area called the "Pimería Alta," or "Upper Pima Country," which presently is located in northern Sonora and southern Arizona. During Father Eusebio Kino's stay in the Pimería Alta, he founded over twenty missions in eight mission districts.

It was rumored that the Jesuit priests had amassed fortunes and were becoming very powerful. On February 3, 1768, King Carlos III ordered the Jesuits forcibly expelled from New Spain and returned to the home country.

The missions

  • Mission Nuestra Señora de los Dolores: founded on March 13, 1687. This was the first mission founded by Father Kino. By 1744, the mission was abandoned. The cemetery remains on the site of the Tumacácori National Historical Park in Southern Arizona.
  • Santa Teresa de Atil was founded in 1687.
  • San Luis Bacoancos was founded in 1691.
  • San Cayetano de Tumacácori Mission was built in 1732, but construction stopped in 1822 due to lack of funds. The farming land around the mission was sold at auction in 1834 and the mission was abandoned by 1840. It is now a National Monument in Tumacácori National Historical Park in Southern Arizona.
  • Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi was founded in 1691.
  • San Lázaro was founded in 1691.
  • San Xavier del Bac (O'odham [Papago]: Va:k), now in Tucson, Arizona, founded in 1692, the present building dates from 1785. The interior is richly decorated with ornaments showing a mixture of New Spain and Native American artistic motifs. It is still used by Tohono O'odham and Yaqui tribal members.
  • San Cosme y Damián de Tucson: 1692
  • Nuestra Señora de Loreto y San Marcelo de Sonoyta: 1693
  • Nuestra Señora de la Ascención de Opodepe: 1704

Notes


Sources and Further Reading

External links


Links to Parks and Recreational Areas within the Sonora Desert


Deserts
Ad-Dahna | Alvord | Arabian | Aral Karakum | Atacama | Baja California | Barsuki | Betpak-Dala | Chalbi | Chihuahuan | Dasht-e Kavir | Dasht-e Lut | Dasht-e Margoh | Dasht-e Naomid | Gibson | Gobi | Great Basin | Great Sandy Desert | Great Victoria Desert | Kalahari | Karakum | Kyzylkum | Little Sandy Desert | Mojave | Namib | Nefud | Negev | Nubian | Ordos | Owyhee | Qaidam | Registan | Rub' al Khali | Ryn-Peski | Sahara | Saryesik-Atyrau | Sechura | Simpson | Sonoran | Strzelecki | Syrian | Taklamakan | Tanami | Thar | Tihamah | Ustyurt
Colorado River system
Dams and aqueducts (see US Bureau of Reclamation)
Shadow Mountain Dam | Granby Dam | Glen Canyon Dam | Hoover Dam | Davis Dam | Parker Dam | Palo Verde Diversion Dam | Imperial Dam | Laguna Dam | Morelos Dam | Colorado River Aqueduct | San Diego Aqueduct | Central Arizona Project Aqueduct | All-American Canal | Coachella Canal | Redwall Dam
Natural features
Colorado River | Rocky Mountains | Colorado River Basin | Grand Lake | Sonoran desert | Mojave desert | Imperial Valley | Colorado Plateau | Grand Canyon | Glen Canyon | Marble Canyon | Paria Canyon | Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez | Salton Sea
Tributaries
Dirty Devil River | Dolores River | Escalante River | Gila River | Green River | Gunnison River | Kanab River | Little Colorado River | Paria River | San Juan River | Virgin River
Major reservoirs
Fontenelle Reservoir | Flaming Gorge Reservoir | Taylor Park Reservoir | Navajo Reservoir | Lake Powell | Lake Mead | Lake Havasu
Dependent states
Arizona | California | Colorado | Nevada | New Mexico | Utah (See: Colorado River Compact)
Designated areas
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area | Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Coordinates: {{#invoke:Coordinates|coord}}{{#coordinates:32|15|36|N|112|55|34|W|region:MX_type:landmark | |name= }}


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