Gobi Desert regard the western area of the Gobi region (as defined above): the basin of the Tarim in Xinjiang and the desert basin of Lop Nor and Hami (Kumul), as forming a separate and independent desert, called the Taklamakan Desert. Archeologists and paleontologists have done excavations in the Nemegt Basin in the northwestern part of the Gobi Desert (in Mongolia), which is noted for its fossil treasures, including early mammals, dinosaur eggs, and prehistoric stone implements, some 100,000 years old. The Gobi is overall a cold desert, with frost and occasionally snow occurring on its dunes. Besides being quite far north,
Gurbantünggüt Desert but now has mostly dried out, and the Ailik Lake (), which receives water from the Baiyang River (which in its turn is replenished by the Irtysh–Karamay Canal). China National Highway 216 crosses the desert in the north-south direction, from Altay City to Ürümqi. China National Highway 217 and the Kuytun–Beitun Railway skirt it from the west and northwest. The Ürümqi–Dzungaria Railway reaches into the desert's southeastern corner, known locally as "Jiangjun Gobi" (将军戈壁, "General's Desert"). The climate of the area is temperate, but very continental. The desert's ecological environment is very fragile, and the impact of human activities on