Oldest desert
- Who
- Namib Desert
- What
- 80,000,000 year(s)
- Where
- United Kingdom
- When
- 01 January 0001
The Namib Desert, covering some 80,900 km² of Namibia and Angola, receives less than 10 mm of rain each year. Its hyper arid state is caused by descending dry air, cooled by the frigid waters of the Benguela ocean current. The Namib Desert has been arid or semi-arid for at least 80 million years.
The present hyper-arid climate has been in existence for the past 16 million years, based on evidence from lithified aeolian sandstone.