North America’s smallest desert holds its lowest point
The Mojave Desert lies in the dry lee of the southern Sierra Nevada and Transverse Ranges, mainly in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada with scraps of Arizona and Utah. At about 54,000 square miles (140,000 km²) it is the smallest and driest of the four North American deserts—and hosts Badwater Basin, the continent’s lowest spot.
Named for the Mohave people, Spanish Mojave and English Mohave both circulate; the Mojave Tribal Nation prefers Mojave, short for Hamakhaave—“beside the water.” Basin-and-range ridges march in parallel valleys. The San Andreas Fault marks the southwest edge; the Garlock Fault fences the north against the Sierra and Tehachapis. Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is the endemic plant that blurs the eastern line toward the Sonoran.
Surface rivers are scarce: the intermittent Mojave sinks underground from the San Bernardinos, and the Amargosa partly flows buried on a southward path. Annual rain averages only two to six inches, yet summers routinely top 100 °F (38 °C) while winters bring freezes, wind, and mountain snow. Late-summer cloudbursts can flash-flood. Invasive Bromus, Schismus, and Brassica annuals now carry fire through fuel beds the desert historically lacked. Locals call it the high desert, since the bulk of its floor sits 2,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level. Bajadas of alluvium spill from the ranges into basins holding salt-crusted playas such as Rogers Dry Lake and China Lake, and the Devils Playground runs about 40 miles of dunes and salt flats between Baker and the Providence Mountains.
Las Vegas, with about 2.3 million people, is the Mojave’s—and Nevada’s—largest metro; St. George, Utah, held around 180,000 in 2020 at the northeast fringe. Ghost towns such as Calico and Kelso remember silver, copper, and abandoned Route 66 alignments.
Edwards Air Force Base and the China Lake naval weapons station test experimental aircraft and arms on its California side. Death Valley's oldest exposed rocks, heavily metamorphosed, are at least 1.7 billion years old. Crustal stretching since about 16 million years ago built the basin-and-range pattern, and between 240,000 and 10,000 years ago glacial periods repeatedly filled Death Valley with Lake Manly; once meltwater from the Sierra was cut off, the lakes dried into today's salt-laden desert.
Source: Mojave Desert
