The stony deserts in eastern Lut cover, as a rubbly veneer, extensive pediplains, which are rock platforms that truncate bedrock and gently slope away from the foot of neighbouring hills.
An extensive, black stony desert covers the basaltic Gandom Beryan plateau in the northwest of the core zone. The wind also strips hard rocky outcrops bare of soil, which leaves extensive stony desert pavements (hamada) with sand-blasted faceted stones (ventifacts) across about 12% of the area. In the Lut Desert some are up to 155 m high and their ridges can be followed for more than 40 km. They cover about one third of the property and appear as massive and dramatic corrugations across the landscape with ridges and corridors oriented parallel to the dominant prevailing wind. Yardangs are bedrock features carved and streamlined by sandblasting. Consequently, the area possesses what are considered the world’s best examples of aeolian yardang landforms, as well as extensive stony deserts and dune fields. These long periods of strong winds propel sand grains at great velocity creating transportation of sediment and aeolian erosion on a colossal scale. The region often experiences Earth’s highest land surface temperatures: a temperature of 70.7☌ has been recorded within the property.Ī steep north-south pressure gradient develops across the region in spring and summer causing strong NNW-SSE winds to blow across the area between June and October each year. The property is situated in an interior basin surrounded by mountains, so it is in a rain shadow and, coupled with high temperatures, the climate is hyper-arid. In the Persian language ‘Lut’ refers to bare land without water and devoid of vegetation.
At 2,278,015 ha the area is large and is surrounded by a buffer zone of 1,794,134 ha. The Lut Desert is in the southeast of the Islamic Republic of Iran, an arid continental subtropical area notable for a rich variety of spectacular desert landforms.
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