NewsTracker Answers for week of July 27, 2009

Q: An architect has proposed using bacteria to solidify sand dunes into a 3,700-mile wall of sandstone across the Sahara to stop the spread of the desert. Where in the world is the Sahara Desert?

Circle the area on this map

Q: In addition to the wall, trees would be planted to form a green belt to prevent the spread of the sand. A green belt also has been proposed to block the spread the Gobi Desert in ...

A. Australia

B. Brazil

C. China

D. Djibouti

C. The Gobi is the largest desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, as well as southern Mongolia.

Q: A 2007 UN study described desertification - the spread of deserts - as "the greatest environmental challenge of our times." What is the largest desert in the world?

A. Sahara

B. Gobi

C. Arabian

D. Antarctic

D. Antarctica is a desert composed of a thick ice sheet and 2 percent barren rock. The Arctic is the second largest desert. The Sahara is third in overall size but the largest hot desert.

Q: The oldest living single plants - pines that have been alive for a little less than 5,000 years - are found in which North American desert?

A. Mojave

B. Great Basin

C. Chihuahuan

D. Sonoran

B. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine nicknamed "Methuselah" is the oldest known non-clonal organism still alive, at the age of about 4,841 years old.

Q: Where is the world's driest desert?

A. Asia

B. Africa

C. North America

D. South America

D. The Atacama Desert is a virtually rainless plateau in South America, covering a 600-mile strip of land on the Pacific coast of South America, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world.