Tarim River
The whole of this region is swept bare of sand by the terrific sand storms ("burãns") of the spring months and the particles of wind-blown sand act like a sand blast. Abrasion of the rocks forms yardangs. The desert itself is abraded, filed, eroded and carried bodily away into the network of lakes in which the Tarim River wanders. The sand also blows across the lower, constantly shifting waterways of the Tarim River and deposits itself onto gigantic dunes that choke the eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert. The extreme weather and ever moving sand dunes have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. The esteemed biologist Peng Jiamu disappeared in the desert in 1980.