Just Deserts by FlaxmanR

The Paranal Observatory and the ALMA telescope (opened in 2011) are located in what desert, known for being the world’s driest hot desert?

Many deserts are formed due primarily to a lack of precipitation that occurs because of their location, with mountain ranges blocking them from receiving moisture-laden air currents. What two-word term is used to describe such areas?

Central Asia contains two large deserts with names meaning “Black Sand” and “Red Sand.” One covers about 70% of the land area of Turkmenistan, while the other is split between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, east of the Aral Sea. Name either desert.

Common in the United States in the Phoenix area, what mildly amusing term taken from Arabic describes a dust storm caused by a downburst of cold air that blows sediment up from the ground and pushes it ahead of a front?

Directly south of the Sahara Desert, what important agricultural region stretching from western Mauritania to eastern Sudan, across Mali, Niger, and Chad, has undergone desertification in recent years due to drought, overgrazing, and soil loss?

The first fossilized dinosaur eggs to be recognized as such and the type specimen of Velociraptor were discovered in this desert in 1923, hinted at by Velociraptor’s type species name. What largest Asian desert has little in the way of vegetation, least of all any cauliflower?

The Strzelecki Desert, located mostly in northeast South Australia, contains the terminal point of the ill-fated expedition to cross Australia led by what two men between August 1860 and their deaths in June 1861?

A number of different tribes are collected under a single term for this group of people, who are spread across North Africa and the Middle East. With a name from the Arabic for “desert dwellers,” what seminomadic group can be found from Mauritania in the west all the way to Oman in the east, often herding camels or goats?

Released in 1980, what South African film tells the story of a Kalahari bushman who embarks on a quest to throw a Coca-Cola bottle off the edge of the world?

The Sonoran Desert, located in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, includes a wide variety of cacti. In addition to Saguaro National Park, what other cactus type has its own NPS location, a national monument along the Mexican border in southern Arizona between the towns of Why and Lukeville?

It was not held in 2008 and in 2009 moved to South America – mostly starting in Buenos Aires since then – amid security fears. What event originally and most famously started in Paris but has also begun in Granada, Barcelona, and Lisbon, with the goal (usually) of crossing the desert and reaching its namesake capital city?

The driest areas in Europe can be found in southern Spain, including the Tabernas Desert. Tabernas is where Conrado Cruz discovers a Continuum ship in the year 2258, in the prologue action of what sci-fi webcomic by “Sheldon” author Dave Kellett?