Damp sandcastles.China's Badain Jaran desert The Badain Jaran Desert can be found in western Inner Mongolia. The desert covers 49,000 sq. kilometers (30, 000 sq. miles) spanning the provinces of Gansu and Ningxia in China as well as Inner Mongolia. This desert is home to the tallest stationary dunes on Earth. , which covers more than 40,000 square kilometers, is home to some of the world's tallest stationary dunes, seen here from the International Space Station. They can stand 500 meters tall and cast immense shadows. What keeps these piles of sand immobile despite arid, windy conditions is a previously unknown source of groundwater, says Ling Li, an environmental engineer at the University of Queensland The University of Queensland (UQ) is the longest-established university in the state of Queensland, Australia, a member of Australia's Group of Eight, and the Sandstone Universities. It is also a founding member of the international Universitas 21 organisation. in St. Lucia, Australia. Analyses of the water suggest that it's snowmelt snow·melt n. 1. The runoff from melting snow. 2. A period or season when such runoff occurs: streams that flood during snowmelt. that flows hundreds of kilometers through fractured rocks to reach the desert. The annual flow, estimated to be 0.5 cubic kilometer Noun 1. cubic kilometer - a unit of capacity equal to the volume of a cube one kilometer on each edge cubic kilometre metric capacity unit - a capacity unit defined in metric terms , could provide an alternative to a planned $500 million river-diversion project, Li and his colleagues say in the Nov. 25 Nature. |
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