EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Frozen Sands of the Gobi

Gobi Desert, Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia)
People's Republic of China

Explanation:  It is early winter in a corner of the Gobi Desert of east Asia.  The ponds and streams here have already frozen solid and the sand is cold and hard ... a vast and formidable landscape in which to survive.

This is Nei Mongol, otherwise known as Inner Mongolia.  

Here, nomadic Mongolian people still live in yurts and simple brick buildings, raising livestock in a region where the desert sands are expanding.  

The Gobi straddles Nei Mongol of China and the adjacent country of Mongolia, and is classified as a "cold desert" because of its elevation (averaging 900 m or about 3,000 ft) and mid-northern latitude.  

Towering dunes ring frozen ponds.  Despite the occasional pools of water,
the Gobi Desert on average receives less than three inches of rain a year.

A panorama from atop an isolated sandstone peak ... of ice, sand, and
occasional shrubs, as far as the eye can see.