Błędów Desert
The Błędów Desert ( Polish : Pustynia Błędowska) is a sandy area nine kilometers long and 3-4 kilometers wide between Błędów (part of Dąbrowa Górnicza ) and Klucze in Poland . The 32 km² area is largely located on the Wyżyna Śląska , the Silesian highlands, in the Silesian Voivodeship .
The desert is the largest occurrence of sand in Central Europe in the inland far from the coast, probably only followed by the Lieberos desert in Germany ( Brandenburg ). It was created when the glaciers melted thousands of years ago. The area has been given the appearance of a desert since the Middle Ages . Mining (zinc, silver and coal) created today's picture. The specific geological structure, however, was of great importance: the average thickness of the sand layers is 40 meters, with a maximum of 70 meters. This promoted quick drying.
In the past few years the desert has started to shrink. Before it was still 150 km². While there are still reports of mirages , sandstorms , tornado and oases from the 1950s and 1960s , there are more and more plants in the desert today (as of 2008), especially Caspian willows ; pure sand areas are becoming increasingly rare.
During the Second World War , the German Africa Corps used the area for training purposes before deploying in Africa.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b www.travel.poland.com ( Memento of the original dated December 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 13, 2008
Coordinates: 50 ° 21 '22.2 " N , 19 ° 31' 3.4" E