Mojave Desert facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mojave Desert Hayyikwiir Mat'aar  (Mohave) Desierto de Mojave  (Spanish)
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley
Location within North America
Ecology
Realm	Nearctic
Biome	Deserts and xeric shrublands
Borders	List California montane chaparral and woodlands Colorado Plateau shrublands Great Basin Desert Sonoran Desert Sierra Nevada
Bird species	230
Mammal species	98
Geography
Area	81,000 km2 (31,000 sq mi)
Country	United States
States	Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah
Coordinates	35°N 116°W / 35°N 116°W / 35; -116
Rivers	Colorado River, Mojave River
Climate type	Cold desert (BWk) and hot desert (BWh)
Conservation
Conservation status	Relatively Stable/Intact

The Mojave Desert is a famous dry region in the Southwestern United States. It sits in the rain shadow behind high mountains called the southern Sierra Nevada and the Transverse Ranges. The desert gets its name from the Native American Mohave people. Most of this desert spreads across southeastern California and southern Nevada. Small parts also cross into northwestern Arizona and southwestern Utah.

Together with the Sonoran Desert, the Chihuahuan Desert, and the Great Basin Desert, it forms a giant network of North American dry lands. Out of these four deserts, the Mojave is the smallest and the driest. It has a special landscape known as basin and range topography. This means long lines of rocky mountains sit right next to wide, flat valleys. The Mojave Desert is also home to Badwater Basin, which is the lowest dry land in North America. People often nickname it the "high desert" because most places sit between 2,000 and 4,000 feet above the sea. Even though it is very dry, many plants and animals live here successfully.

The huge desert covers around 54,000 square miles of land. People visit it for outdoor camping, hiking, cattle farming, and science testing. Long ago, miners discovered big deposits of silver, tungsten, iron, and gold hidden beneath the rocks. The spelling Mojave comes from early Spanish explorers, while the spelling Mohave comes from modern English. Both words come from the native word Hamakhaave, which means "beside the water."

Geography and Natural Landscapes

The Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) grows across the Mojave Desert.

The Mojave Desert has exciting natural boundaries made of tall mountains and changing landscapes. To the west, the giant Sierra Nevada and the California montane chaparral and woodlands block wet coastal weather. To the south and east, it gradually blends into the warmer Sonoran Desert. While some borders have clear mountain ridges, other borders look very similar to neighboring deserts. Scientists often use a special plant called the Joshua tree to map where the Mojave begins and ends. This famous spiky plant is endemic to the Mojave, which means it grows naturally almost nowhere else on Earth.

Other unique plants show that you are in the Mojave Desert rather than the nearby Sonoran Desert. These include the sturdy ironwood tree, the green blue Palo Verde, and the red-flowered chuparosa. You can also spot the tough spiny menodora, the yellow desert senna, and the bushy California dalea. Tall California fan palm trees grow around rare natural springs, while small shrubs called goldenhead dot the rocky hillsides.

Giant cracks in the crust of the Earth called faults also shape the edges of the desert. The famous San Andreas Fault lines the southwest edge, pushing up tall mountains that separate the desert from coastal cities. To the north, another giant crack called the Garlock Fault separates the Mojave from the Tehachapi Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Over millions of years, fast rains washed rocks down the mountains, forming sloping gravel piles called alluvial fans. When several fans join together along the base of a mountain, scientists call them bajadas.

Below these sloping hills lie giant, flat lake beds called playas. When occasional rains fall, water gathers in these shallow basins and dries up quickly under the hot sun. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind dazzling white layers of pure salt and dry mud. Famous dry lake beds include Rogers Dry Lake and the huge flats at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Another amazing area is the Devils Playground, which contains 40 miles of shifting sand dunes and salt flats. It sits in the Mojave National Preserve between the town of Baker, California and the rocky Providence Mountains, surrounding the rugged Cronese Mountains.

Water is quite rare on top of the ground, but hidden rivers flow quietly underground. The unusual Mojave River starts up in the wet mountains, runs down toward the desert, and then sinks under the sand. Another hidden stream is the Amargosa River, which travels underground toward the lowest basins. Ancient natural lakes like Lake Manix once filled these valleys during cooler prehistoric times. Today, Soda Lake remains as a huge dry salt basin where water only appears during rare floods. While natural springs are unusual, places like Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and Oasis Valley provide crystal clear pools that bubble up from deep underground rock chambers.

Weather and Seasons

A powerful High Desert summer storm sweeps rapidly across the Mojave Desert.

The weather in the Mojave Desert changes dramatically between the freezing winter and the scorching summer. During winter months, cold winds blow across the valleys, and snow regularly coats the higher mountains. In contrast, summer afternoons often push thermometers far above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The whole desert usually gets only 2 to 6 inches of rain during an entire year. High mountain ridges like the San Gabriel Mountains receive a bit more moisture. Most winter storms travel east from the Pacific Ocean, dropping their water on western mountain peaks before reaching the valleys. This dry effect is called a rain shadow.

During the late summer, moist tropical air can sweep in, creating giant towering thunderstorms. These storms drop heavy buckets of water in just a few minutes, causing dangerous and fast-moving flash flood events. Historically, the desert did not have many wildfires because bushes grew far apart from one another. In recent years, fast-growing weeds like invasive grass from the genus Bromus, wild grass named Schismus, and mustard plants called Brassica have spread out. When these dry plants catch fire, they can spread flames across areas that never burned before.

Towns, Cities, and Highways

Las Vegas is the biggest city built in the Mojave Desert.

Even though desert environments can be harsh, several major towns and cities thrive here today. The largest city in the entire desert is Las Vegas, Nevada, which is home to more than two million people. Up in the northeast corner sits St. George, Utah, which sits where the Mojave meets other high desert regions. In California, cities like Lancaster and Palmdale have grown rapidly into busy desert communities. Just east of those cities lies Victorville, which is part of the bustling Victor Valley.

Smaller towns also line desert highways and rivers. These include Helendale, Lake Havasu City, Kingman, Laughlin, Bullhead City, Pahrump, and Twentynine Palms. Many of these communities grew because travelers needed stops along wide empty stretches of road. In addition, the desert provides giant spaces for testing airplanes at Edwards Air Force Base and research stations like Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake.

The Mojave Desert also features fascinating ghost town sites from older pioneer days. One famous example is Calico, California, which boomed when miners dug silver from nearby hills. Another preserved town is Kelso, California, which once operated as a lively train depot. Other towns disappeared after modern multi-lane highways replaced older travel paths like U.S. Route 66 and U.S. Route 91. Today, drivers travel through on big freeways including CA SR 14, Interstate 15, Interstate 40, CA SR 58, CA SR 138, US Route 95, and US Route 395.

Earth Science and Ancient Rocks

Giant rounded rocks in Joshua Tree National Park.

Geologists love exploring the Mojave Desert because the dry ground leaves ancient rock layers exposed to the open air. In places like Death Valley National Park, scientists can study over twenty distinct rock formations stacked on top of one another. Sometimes, whole chapters of the rock record are missing due to ancient weathering, creating mysterious gaps called unconformities. When several related layers sit together, geologists classify them as a group. The most ancient rocks in the region were squeezed and baked through metamorphism deep underground. Scientists estimate that some of these rocks are over 1,700 million years old!

Very long ago, in the ancient Precambrian time, shallow ocean waters covered the land that became this desert. These waters laid down pebbly conglomerate, soft mudstone, and chalky carbonate rock. Tiny bacteria colonies built rounded stone mounds called stromatolites on the seabed. Some layers might even date back to when glaciers covered the planet during the ancient Snowball Earth period. When the ancient supercontinent called Rodinia began to break apart through a process called rifting, deep ocean water rushed into the widening cracks.

A gentle sloping seabed called a passive margin formed along these new shores. Over time, the continental crust stretched thinner and thinner under the pull of plate tectonics. Broken pieces of rock called clastic sediment piled up at the bottom of underwater cliffs through accretion. These deep piles trapped ancient fossils, preserving the very first complex living creatures in the desert region.

During the ancient Paleozoic era, ocean waters continued to flood over the flat plains. But during the later Mesozoic era, the tectonic plates shifted direction. The oceanic Farallon Plate under the Pacific Ocean began sliding under the heavy North American Plate. This sliding action created an active margin along a fiery subduction zone. Melting rock created towering volcano chains that erupted over the land while new mountains rose into the sky.

Around 16 million years ago during the miocene epoch, the crust began pulling apart again. Deep hot mantle rock pushed up along an underground spreading zone. This stretching ripped open the land, building the huge Basin and Range province. A few million years ago, this stretching created Death Valley and the neighboring Panamint Valley. During ancient ice ages, melting glaciers formed giant freshwater lakes, including ancient Lake Manly. When the ice age ended around 10,500 years ago, the lakes dried up, leaving behind thick salt deposits and sandy plains.

Because of this intense underground history, the Mojave Desert contains many valuable minerals. Weathered stones break down into loose gravel called colluvium. During the nineteenth century and up through the Second World War, miners actively dug for gold, silver, and tungsten. Deep underground deposits also hold tin, metallic lead-zinc, manganese, and natural materials that undergo Radioactive decay. Today, people manage these resources carefully to balance mining business with wildlife conservation.

Desert Plants and Animals

Plant Life in the Desert

A painting of yellow desert senna flowers.

Plants that survive in the Mojave Desert have special adaptations to handle dry soil and blazing sunshine. Many plants are endemic, meaning they grow wild in this specific desert and nowhere else. The most famous indicator plant is the spiky Joshua Tree, which provides shelter and food for desert wildlife. Plants in this region evolved separately for thousands of years because mountain ranges blocked them from other plant communities.

Tough bushes cover vast miles of open desert valleys. The hardy all-scale and the resin-coated creosote bush grow wide root systems to absorb rare rain droplets. Another common plant is the silvery brittlebush, which grows bright yellow flowers in spring. You can also spot the pale, salty leaves of the desert holly and bushy clusters of the white burrobush.

Spiny cacti store precious water inside their thick fleshy stems. Common varieties include the prickly silver cholla and the flat-padded Mojave prickly pear. The spineless beavertail cactus grows pretty pink flowers, while the many-headed barrel cactus forms low, heavy clusters protected by sharp curved thorns. Colorful desert flowers bloom quickly after winter storms before the heat of summer arrives.

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  California Dalea, an indicator species of the Mojave Desert

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  Goldenhead (Acamptopappus shockleyi) blooming in the desert

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  Silver cholla (Opuntia echinocarpa) has very sharp spines

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  A creosote bush can live for thousands of years

Wildlife and Animal Adaptations

A desert tortoise digging in the desert dirt.

Mojave animals have smart ways to stay cool and hide from predators. Large mammals include sure-footed bighorn sheep that climb steep rocky cliffs to avoid danger. Powerful mountain lions hunt silently across the hillsides, while fast-running black-tailed jackrabbits use giant ears to release body heat. The beloved desert tortoise spends up to ninety percent of its life underground in deep burrows to escape heat and winter cold.

Many birds and reptiles thrive in the Mojave Desert. A quick desert bird called the LeConte's thrasher runs swiftly between bushes looking for bugs. At night, the tiny banded gecko creeps across rocks, while daytime lizards like the herbivorous desert iguana bask on hot boulders. Other unique reptiles include the wide chuckwalla and the spiky regal horned lizard. Several kinds of snakes slither through the sand, including the gentle rosy boa, the quick Western patch-nosed snake, and the venomous Mojave rattlesnake.

Several rare creatures live only in special pockets of the desert. The sandy dunes hide the Kelso Dunes Jerusalem cricket and the flightless Kelso Dunes shieldback katydid. Rare mammals include the small Mohave ground squirrel and the wetland-loving Amargosa vole. Lizards like the Mojave fringe-toed lizard have special scales on their toes that act like snowshoes across shifting sand dunes. Tiny fish called the Devils Hole pupfish live inside just one single warm spring pool near Death Valley!

People, History, and Modern Life

Early Inhabitants and Explorers

The Space Shuttle flying over the Mojave Desert on an airplane.

Long before roads were paved, Native American tribes lived throughout the Mojave Desert. Groups like the Mohave people lived as skilled hunter-gatherers and farmers, finding food, water, and tools across the rugged landscape. They knew how to navigate between hidden springs and used desert plants for medicine and food.

European travelers arrived in the desert during the 1700s. A Spanish Franciscan friar named Francisco Garcés crossed the desert in 1776, writing notes about indigenous tribes and desert pathways. Years later, American explorer Jedediah Smith led an expedition across the sands in 1826, finally arriving at the Spanish settlement of San Gabriel Mission.

Modern Towns, Energy, and Conservation

Panorama of Zabriskie Point

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, humans built towns, farms, and military bases across the desert. Cities like Las Vegas expanded rapidly, requiring more water, roads, and land. Farming near the Colorado River turned dry banks into green fields, but also reduced natural animal habitats. Today, the United States Armed Forces use wide Mojave valleys to train pilots and test modern equipment.

The bright sunny skies make the desert ideal for green energy projects. Power companies have built large installations for solar energy to generate electricity without burning coal. For example, the huge Desert Sunlight Solar Farm powers thousands of homes nearby. However, scientists study ways to protect wildlife from solar projects, such as keeping birds like the rare Yuma clapper rail safe from mistaking reflective panels for real lakes.

Because desert nature is delicate, lawmakers passed the famous California Desert Protection Act of 1994. This law set aside millions of acres of public land as protected parks and preserves. Visitors can explore giant protected spaces like Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, and the wild Mojave National Preserve. Families enjoy boating on large desert reservoirs like Lake Mead, Lake Mohave, and Lake Havasu.

Orange poppies blooming in the Antelope Valley.

Several state parks also protect special landscapes across the desert. Bright orange flowers bloom every spring at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Hikers can climb unique peaks at Saddleback Butte State Park or admire colorful sandstone cliffs at Red Rock Canyon State Park. Green walking paths wind through Mojave Narrows Park near Victorville.

Historic places continue to welcome tourists today. Visitors can explore old mining buildings in the Calico Mountains at Calico Ghost Town. The famous amusement creator Walter Knott loved Calico so much that he based parts of Knott's Berry Farm on its history. The Bureau of Land Management also protects fossil-rich spots like Rainbow Basin and oversees vast areas of the National Conservation Lands.

The desert also appears often in music and movies. The artist Sting filmed "Desert Rose", Mazzy Star filmed "Fade into You", and pop superstar Madonna recorded "Frozen" here. Other videos shot in the sands include "Goodbye" by Mimi Webb, "Make It Wit Chu" by Queens of the Stone Age, "Run the World (Girls)" by Beyoncé, "Say You'll Be There" by the Spice Girls, "That Don't Impress Me Much" by Shania Twain, and "What Took You So Long?" by Emma Bunton. The rock band U2 took photos here for their record The Joshua Tree, and Apple named its computer software macOS Mojave after this amazing American desert.

See also

In Spanish: Desierto de Mojave para niños