Labels:text | font | screenshot | black and white | white OCR: Deserts are also well-known for their strange rock formations - rocks are weathered or worn away by wind, extreme temperature and rare but heavy rains. The strong winds pick up sand which then scours away at the rock, in a similar way to the sand-blasting process used to clean dirt from old stone and brick buildings. The desert landforms were originally formed when rocks thrust upward millions of years ago when the Earth was shaped. Over millions of years, rocks have gradually been weathered by heat, cold, wind, rain and chemical processes.