Is desert soil rationale?
In the desert, since there is little to no water its hard for nutrients to fertilize the topsoil. Instead, erosion, frost, sedimentation, and the huge temperature drops/rises between day and night break down the surface into. The low moisture makes silt and sand-sized particles easy to blow away, while the remaining material eventually form a tightly packed layer known as "desert pavement". Finally, because of the low rainfall, there isn’t a lot of activity and vegetation in the surface material. The result: a dry place, full of sand and "desert pavement" that can house barely any plant life.