Rub’ Al Khali
アラビア半島の南部には、空白地帯またはルブア・ハーリー沙漠と云う名で知られた茫漠とした沙漠地帯が広がります。東はハジャール山脈、西部はトゥワイク山脈、北は涸れ谷サフバー、南はアラビア海沿いのカーラ山脈、マフラ山地、ハドラマウト山地等を含むドファール山脈に囲まれる盆地が空白地帯です。
長さが東西約1,200キロで最大幅が南北650 キロ近くあります。イエメン、オマーン、アラブ首長国連邦、サウジアラビアにまたがるその面積はフランス、ベルギーとオランダ三国を合わせたより大きく約650,000平方 キロもあります。
その中に住むベドウインは単にリマールと呼んでいる砂海ですが、連続する砂沙漠としては世界最大です。全体として緩やかに傾斜した盆地構造をしており、砂を閉じ込める防風障害物に囲まれた地形的な窪みに成っています。アラビア半島北部のナフード沙漠から延々と続く砂の回廊ダフナー沙漠やアラビア湾岸沿いに延びるジャーフーラ沙漠を飲み込んでいます。砂丘を形成する砂の堆積は標高が600メートルと最も高い西部では薄く細く柔らかいシート状をしており、海辺に近い東部では塩の平原（サブハ）と砂丘を支える厚い砂の被いになっています。
The southern Arabian Peninsula is home to a vague desert area known as the Empty quarter or the Rub’ al Khali. The Empty quarter is a basin surrounded by the Hajar mountains to east, the Jebel Tuwaiq to west, the Wadi as-Sahba to north, and the Dhofar mountains to south. The Dhofar mountains is a general term for the Qara mountains, the Jebel Mahrat, the Jebel Hadhramout, and several other plateaus along the Arabian sea. In some cases, only the Qara mountains are called the Dhofar mountains.
The Rub’ al Khali is approximately 1,200 kilometers east-west and has a maximum width of nearly 650 kilometers north-south. Straddling Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, its area is larger than France, Belgium and the Netherlands combined, and is about 650,000 square kilometers.
This sand sea is simply called al-Rimal by Bedouins who live in it, but it is the largest continuous sand desert in the world. It has a gently sloping basin structure as a whole, and is a topographical depression surrounded by windbreak obstacles that trap sand. The Rub ’al Khali swallows the Ad Dahna Desert, an endless sand corridor from the An Nafud Desert on the northern Arabian Peninsula, as well as the Al Jafurah Desert, which stretches along the Arabian Gulf. In the Western Rub’ al Khali, sand deposits that form dunes are the highest at an altitude of 600 meters, but they are thin, narrow and soft sheets. On the other hand, in the eastern Rub’ al Khali near seaside, grounds that supports the dunes are salt flats (Sabkhas) and/or thick sand sheet.
目次
Index
Desert peninsula 