What is a timberline?

Some mountains have trees growing clear to their tops, but on many high mountains there is a line above which trees stop growing.

The place where trees stop growing is called the “timberline”.  Trees don’t grow above it because they cannot survive the freezing temperatures there.

Above the timberline the mountainside is likely to be a cold desert with only patches of lichens, moss and stunted vegetation twisted by the strong winds of the mountain tops.

Here, the bitter cold keeps the water in the ground frozen for much of the year, and bigger plants cannot get enough water.

Just  below the timberline the tall pine forests stand alone.  There tough, needle-shaped leaves can withstand the icy winds and harsh living conditions on the cold mountainside better than the broad-leaf trees can.

The timberline is much higher on some mountains than on others.  It depends on the climate, and latitude.

How did death valley get its name?

Death Valley

Death valley was named in 1849 but the survivors of a party of prospectors, many of whom died of heat and thirst while looking for gold in the valley.  The hottest, driest and lowest place in the United States is Death Valley.  Death Valley is a desert basin that lies mostly in Southern California.

Death Valley is about 140 miles long and 4 to 16 miles wide.  About 500 square miles of the valley are below sea level, including the lowest spot in North America (282 feet below sea lever near Bad Water).

Only about two inches of rain fall on Death Valley’s wastelands each year and the scorching heat has reached 134 degree in the shade—a record high temperature in the United States.  Despite the burning hear many kinds of plants thrive here, such as mesquite and desert holly.  You can find coyotes, rabbits, rattlesnakes, birds and many other creatures living here, too. – Dick Rogers

Why Is A Desert Dry?

Deserts cover nearly a fifth of the earth’s surface.  We would probably describe a desert as a hot, barren land where it hardly ever rains—a land so dry that few plants can grow on it, and where other

Dry Desert

forms of life also find it difficult to exits.  The desert we have just described occupies nearly a fifth of the earth’s land surface.  Large deserts can be found in all of the continents except Europe.

The driest and hottest deserts are found in the trade wind zones north and south of the Equator.  Deserts in these areas, such as the Sahara Desert of North Africa, are dry even though they may be near the ocean waters.  Here the winds blow across the desert toward the Equator and become very hot and dry, and release little of their moisture as rain.

Some deserts are dry because they are so far from the sea that the winds blowing in from the ocean lose their moisture long before they reach these deserts.  And in many cases, desert regions are cut off from the moisture laden sea air by tall mountains that catch the rainfall on their seaward side. – Dick Rogers