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Back To: Environment
Rub’al Khali, the Empty Quarter
The Rub al Khali is the world's largest sand desert. It has an area
of more than 583,000 square kilometers and covers about 25% of the
area of
Saudi Arabia, as well as parts of
Oman,
Yemen, and the
United Arab Emirates to create an arid wilderness larger
than France. It holds roughly half as much sand as the Sahara, which
is 15 times the Empty Quarter's size but composed mostly of graveled
plains and rocky outcrops.
The desert stretches
from the highlands of the Nejd to the north to the plateaus of
Hadhramaut in Yemen; it slopes from an altitude of 1,006 m in the
west to near sea level in the east. The unbroken sweep of pure sand
was formed over eons. Water and wind eroded volcanic highlands and
dry seabeds down to pebbles and grains, which were blown into huge
dunes.
Sand dunes rise to over 200 m in the southwest; in some parts the
dunes reach a height of 300m. Rub’ al Khali is connected to the
Nafud desert in the north by the Dahna, a narrow corridor 1,287 km
long. The desert is extremely dry and virtually uninhabited.
Summer temperatures range from below freezing at night to 60C at
noon.
Bedouin tribes have adapted to the harsh landscape and find enough
grazing grounds for their camels on fringes of the Empty Quarter.
Though years can go by with no rainfall, some plants such as
saltbushes and grasses survive in this climate. Some animals have
adapted to desert life, such as the sand fox, which eats rodents and
reptiles and need little water. Desert hares stay in deep burrows
during the daytime heat.
The Empty Quarter is
one of the most oil-rich places in the world. Vast reserves of
excellent quality oil have been discovered. Al-Ghawar oil field is
one of the world's largest.
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