The Red Desert is one of the most dangerous deserts in Australia. Australian deserts Why the central part of Australia is occupied by deserts
Australia is often called a desert continent, because about 44% of its surface (3.8 million sq. Km) is occupied by arid territories, of which 1.7 million sq. km. km - desert. Even the rest is seasonally dry. This allows us to say that Australia is the most arid continent on the globe.
Deserts of Australia - Great Sandy, Gibson, Great Victoria Desert, Simpson (Arunta). The deserts of Australia are confined to ancient structural elevated plains. The climatic conditions of Australia are determined by its geographical location, orographic features, the vast Pacific Ocean and the proximity of the Asian mainland. Of the three climatic zones of the southern hemisphere, the deserts of Australia are located in two: tropical and subtropical, with most of them occupied by the latter zone.
In the tropical climatic zone, which occupies the territory between the 20th and 30th parallels in the desert zone, a tropical continental desert climate is formed. The subtropical continental climate is common in the southern part of Australia, adjacent to the Great Australian Bight. These are the outskirts of the Great Victoria Desert. Therefore, in the summer period, from December to February, the average temperatures reach 30 ° C, and sometimes even higher, and in the winter (July - August) they decrease to an average of 15-18 ° C. In some years, the entire summer period temperatures can reach 40 ° C, and winter nights in the neighborhood of the tropics drops to 0 ° C and below. The amount and territorial distribution of precipitation is determined by the direction and nature of the winds.
The main source of moisture is the "dry" southeast trade winds, since most of the moisture is retained by the mountain ranges of Eastern Australia. The central and western parts of the country, corresponding to about half of the area, receive an average of about 250-300 mm of precipitation per year. The Simpson Desert receives the least amount of precipitation, from 100 to 150 mm per year. The rainy season in the northern half of the continent, where the monsoon change of winds dominates, is confined to the summer period, and, in its southern part, arid conditions prevail during this period. It should be noted that the amount of winter precipitation in the southern half decreases as one moves inland, rarely reaching 28°S. In turn, summer precipitation in the northern half, having the same tendency, does not spread south of the tropic. Thus, in the zone between the tropic and 28°S. there is a dry zone.
Australia is characterized by excessive variability in average annual precipitation and uneven precipitation throughout the year. The presence of long dry periods and high average annual temperatures prevailing over a large part of the continent cause high annual evaporation rates. In the central part of the mainland, they are 2000-2200 mm, decreasing towards its marginal parts. The surface waters of the mainland are extremely poor and extremely unevenly distributed over the territory. This is especially true for the desert western and central regions of Australia, which are practically drainless, but make up 50% of the continent's area.
The hydrographic network of Australia is represented by temporary drying watercourses (creeks). The drainage of the rivers of the deserts of Australia belongs partly to the basin of the Indian Ocean and the basin of Lake Eyre. The hydrographic network of the mainland is supplemented by lakes, of which there are about 800, and a significant part of them are located in deserts. The largest lakes - Eyre, Torrens, Carnegie and others - are salt marshes or dried-up basins covered with a powerful layer of salts. The lack of surface water is compensated by the richness of groundwater. A number of large artesian basins stand out here (Desert Artesian Basin, Northwest Basin, Northern Murray Basin and part of Australia's largest groundwater basin, the Great Artesian Basin).
The soil cover of deserts is very peculiar. In the northern and central regions, red, red-brown and brown soils are distinguished (characteristic features of these soils are an acid reaction, coloring with iron oxides). Serozem-like soils are widespread in the southern parts of Australia. In western Australia, desert soils are found along the outskirts of drainless basins. The Great Sandy Desert and the Great Victoria Desert are characterized by red sandy desert soils. Salt marshes and solonetzes are widely developed in drainless internal depressions in the southwest of Australia and in the basin of Lake Eyre.
The Australian deserts are divided into many different types in terms of landscape, among which Australian scientists most often distinguish mountainous and foothill deserts, structural plains deserts, rocky deserts, sandy deserts, clay deserts, plains. Sandy deserts are the most common, occupying about 32% of the continent's area. Along with sandy deserts, rocky deserts are also widespread (they occupy about 13% of the area of arid territories. Piedmont plains are an alternation of large-stony deserts with dry channels of small rivers. This type of desert is the source of most of the country's desert watercourses and always serves as a habitat for aborigines. Deserts Structural plains are found in the form of a plateau with a height of no more than 600 m above sea level.After sandy deserts, they are the most developed, occupying 23% of the area of arid territories, confined mainly to Western Australia.
On the Australian continent, deserts have got a huge territory, almost half of the continent. It was the deserts that tested the first Australian travelers for strength and still beckon with their ascetic landscapes.
– Strelecki Desert, Cameron Corner
Top 10 Australia
Deserts of Australia
The deserts of Australia occupy approximately 40% of the entire surface of the continent. For this, Australia is even sometimes called the continent of deserts. But the rest of the continent's surface remains dry most of the year. It can be concluded that Australia is the most arid continent on earth. The explanation for this must be sought in the climatic conditions determined by the geographical position of the continent, the vast water surface of the Pacific Ocean and the close proximity of the Asian continent. In addition, most of the deserts of the continent are in the subtropics.
– Location of deserts on the map of Australia
Australian deserts are divided into several types, among which the country's scientists distinguish mountainous and foothill deserts, rocky and sandy, clay deserts and plains. About 32% of the area of the continent is occupied by sandy deserts. In second place are rocky deserts - they occupy about 13% of the area of all desert territories. Large-stony deserts are located on the foothill plains - it is these territories that serve as the habitat of the natives.
Let's get acquainted with the deserts of Australia in descending order by area.
– 1 – Great Victoria Desert – (WA, SA)
– Great Victoria Desert
Great Victoria Desert- is considered the largest desert in Australia, it covers 4% of the mainland. The desert is located on the territory of Western and South Australia, but, paradoxically, outside the state of Victoria. It extends in a wide strip from the middle of Western Australia to the McDonnell ranges. North of Greater Victoria Desert the Gibson Desert is located, to the south is the Nullarbor Plain. The total area of the desert is 348.570 km². The height of the desert above sea level is approximately 500-700 meters. Ridge sands (elevation 10-30 m) are located on a large territory of the desert, fixed by sods of spinifex grass. Due to unfavorable climatic conditions (arid climate), there is no agricultural activity in the desert. It is a protected area in Western Australia.
Since 1965, a significant part Desert Victoria has the status of a protected area and, together with Mamungari Conservation Park on the Nullarbor Plain in the state of South Australia is considered one of the twelve Australian reserves, which are under the auspices of UNESCO under the program "Man and the Biosphere". Particular attention is paid to the preservation and maintenance of natural complexes of sandy deserts, rocky ridges and salt lakes.
The so-called “Giles Corridor” runs through the entire Victoria Desert - a narrow strip of katniks, the only continuous contour of shrubs here. This corridor connects the Pilbara region of Western Australia with the Central Ranges, passing through the Lake Carnegie region in the Victoria Desert and the southern part of the Gibson Desert.
Travelers who have explored this desert have even found something poetic in this sun-baked landscape: picturesque folds of sand, which, thanks to the northwest and southeast winds, fit parallel and are colored in brown-red, yellowish, ash and purple. Only eucalyptus, acacia and spinifex grow in the sands of Victoria.
The name of the desert was in honor of Queen Victoria, it was given by the British explorer of Australia. Ernest GilesErnest Giles, who in 1875 was the first European to cross the desert.
This desert is almost completely devoid of water sources and is extremely difficult to access both for habitation and for research. Despite this, the Myrning Kogara tribes live in the Great Victoria Desert, trying to preserve the traditional way of life. The creation of testing grounds for weapons here also contributed to the isolation of the region. All this has led to the fact that now this territory is the least populated area of Australia.
On the territory of the region there is the Woomera exclusion zone, created by the governments of Britain and Australia in 1946 for testing missiles and various types of weapons. It extends from Lakes Torrens and Eyre in eastern South Australia to the border with Western Australia. The northern border of the zone runs along the Trans-Australian Railway, and the southern border is 110 km south of the border with the state of the Northern Territory. During the creation of this landfill, significant areas of the desert were disturbed - mainly during the construction of roads. The Woomera area was used as a range for testing long-range missiles, testing nuclear weapons, and storing atomic fuel. At least 9 large atomic explosions and several hundred smaller-scale tests were carried out here.
– 2 – Great Sandy Desert – (WA, NT)
– Great Sandy Desert
Or Western desert- the hottest region of Australia, it ranks second in area after Deserts of Victoria- 360,000 km². The desert is located in the north of Western Australia, in the Kimberley region, east of the Pilbara. A small part of it lies in the Northern Territory. It is here that the famous Kata Tjuta National Park - Uluru (Ayers Rock) is located, which attracts travelers from all over the world.
It extends 900 km west to east from Eighty Mile Beach on the Indian Ocean deep into the Northern Territories to the Tanami Desert, as well as 600 km north to south from the Kimberley region to the Tropic of Capricorn, passing into the Gibson Desert.
Great Sandy Desert contrary to the name, it is not only a sandy desert. In addition to sands, there are also clay and saline plains. However, the largest areas are covered with red sands. These sands form dunes up to 30 m high (usually 10-15 m), the length of the dunes reaches 50 km. Due to the often blowing trade winds, the dunes have a latitudinal direction. There are many lakes in the desert - Disapointment, Gregory, Mackay, Carneggie. For most of the year, the lakes are dry salt marshes or cracked clay, and during heavy rains they can overflow for many kilometers. This desert is one of the most dangerous in Australia - it rains here in small quantities and not every year.
There is almost no permanent population in the desert, with the exception of several groups of aborigines, including the tribes of Karadyeri (Karadjeri) and Ngina (Nygina). It is assumed that the bowels of the desert may contain minerals. The Rudall River National Park is located in the central part of the region.
Europeans first crossed the desert (from east to west) and described it in 1873 under the leadership of Major P. Warburton. Through the desert region in the northeast direction passes Canning Stock Route 1,600 km long from the city Wiluna across Lake Disappointment to Halls Creek. In the northeastern part of the desert is Wolf Creek Crater.
– 3 – Tanami Desert – (NT, WA)
– Tanami Desert / photo by Michael Seebeck
This rocky and sandy desert is located northwest of the city of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory of Australia. The area exceeds 184 thousand km². The study of the desert began already in the 20th century, but so far, this is the least studied area among all the desert regions of Australia.
The average annual rainfall in this area is more than 400 mm, that is, there are quite a lot of rainy days for the desert. But location Tanami Desert is such that a high temperature predominates, and with it a high rate of evaporation. The average daily temperature in the summer months (October-March) is around 38°C, at night 22°C. Temperature in winter: daytime - about 25 °C, night - below 10 °C.
The main landforms are dunes and sandy plains, as well as shallow water basins of the Lander River, in which there are water pits, drying marshes and salt lakes.
The first European to reach the desert was an explorer Geoffrey Ryan who did so in 1856. However, the first European to explore Tanami was Allan Davidson. During his expedition in 1900, he discovered and mapped local gold deposits. now gold is being mined in the desert. Tourism has developed in recent years.
– 4 – Simpson Desert – (NT, SA, QLD)
– Simpson Desert
This desert was discovered thanks to the desire of the Australian government to find new areas for grazing livestock and people. However, as one would expect, the desire to use the Gibson Desert for this purpose, or, as it was called at first, Aruntu, turned out to be in vain. By the way, she deceived the expectations of oil seekers as well - the search was carried out in the 70s of the 20th century. Currently, several protected areas have been established in the Gibson Desert. One of them - Simpson Desert National Park is considered the largest. However, rare animals or plants cannot be found inside it - most visitors come here to experience the silence of the desert while driving an off-road vehicle.
Simpson Desert located in the center of Australia, mostly in the southeast corner of the Northern Territory, with a small part in the states of Queensland and South Australia. It has an area of 143 thousand km², from the west it is bounded by the Finke River, from the north by the McDonnell Range and the Plenty River, from the east by the Mulligan and Diamantina rivers, and from the south by the large salt lake Eyre. Surprisingly, Desert Simpson rich in groundwater.
The landscapes of this place amaze the imagination: between high dunes there are areas of smooth clay crust and rocky plains strewn with turned stones. The Simpson Desert is not like other placers of hot sand, of which there are thousands of square kilometers in Australia. Desert landscapes are not as monotonous as it might seem at first glance.
This amazing desert has dunes that are arranged parallel to each other. Their length is the largest in the world. Of course, these are the dunes that have a more or less permanent location. They stretch in a direction from south to north. The highest of the sand dunes reaches a height of 40 meters! But there are also dunes that are slowly shifting. The total number of dunes in the desert reaches 1100!
The desert has been opened Charles Sturt in 1845 and on a drawing by Griffith Taylor (Thomas Griffith) in 1926, together with the Stony Desert Sturt (Sturt Stony Desert) was named Arunta After surveying the area from the air in 1929, geologist Cecil Madigan named the desert after Alan Simpson, president of the South Australian Chapter of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. It is believed that the first European to cross the desert Medigen in 1939 (on camels), but in 1936 it was made by the expedition of Edmund Albert Colson (Edmund Albert Colson).
– 5 – Gibson Desert – (WA)
– Gibson Desert
The early explorers of Australia referred to the Gibson Desert as "a great rolling desert of gravel". This is true: the entire surface of this desert is covered with rubble - material unsuitable for agriculture. Unlike Western, on the territory Gibson Desert there are several natural reservoirs - these are saline lakes. However, people live even in such difficult conditions - the Pintubi tribe, one of the last Australian tribes that have preserved the traditional way of life.
Sandy Gibson Desert located in the center of Western Australia, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, between the Great Sandy Desert in the north and the Great Victoria Desert in the south. It has an area of 155,530 km². From the west, the desert is bounded by the Hamersley Range. In the western and eastern parts it consists of long parallel sandy ridges, but in the central part the relief is leveled off. There are several lakes near the Hamersley Range in the western part of the desert. However, travelers should not rejoice - these are saline lakes, the water in which is not suitable for drinking.
The desert was discovered by explorer Ernest Giles during the English expedition of 1873-1874. The name of the desert was in honor of a member of the expedition Alfred Gibson, who died in it while searching for water.
– 6 – Little Sandy Desert – (WA)
– Little Sandy Desert
Little Sandy Desert is a piece of land in Western Australia located south of Great Sandy Desert, and in the east it becomes Gibson Desert.
In the territory Little Sandy Desert there are several lakes, the largest of which is Lake Disapointment, which means "disappointment" in translation, and is located in the north. Seyviori is the main river that runs through this area. It flows into Disapointment Lake. Salt marsh area reaches 330 square meters. The water surface was discovered by a traveler who made a significant contribution to the study of the Pilbara region, Frank Hank in 1897. In search of water, he followed small underground streams in the hope of discovering a fresh lake, but nature played a cruel joke on the researcher - the water in such a huge natural pit turned out to be salty.
The area of the region is 101 thousand km². The average annual amount of precipitation, which falls mainly in the summer, is 150-200 mm. Average summer temperatures range from 22 to 38.3° C, in winter this figure is 5.4-21.3° C
The name of the desert is due to the fact that it is located next to the Great Sandy Desert, but is much smaller. According to the characteristics of the relief, fauna and flora, the Small Sandy Desert is similar to its large "sister".
– 7 – Strzelecki Desert – (SA, NSW, QLD)
– Strzelecki Desert, New South Wales
Strzelecki Desert is located in the southeast, between Lake Eyre in the north and the Flinders Range in the south. It is located in the northeast of the state of South Australia, the northwest of the state of New South Wales and its edge in the southwest of Queensland. In the northwest it passes into the Simpson Desert. The area is 80 thousand km², which is almost 1% of the area of Australia. Explored in 1845. Named in honor of the Polish scientist Pawel Strzelecki (Pawel Edmund Strzelecki). Often referred to in sources as Sagittarius Desert.
The channels of the seasonal rivers Strzelecki Creek and Yandama Creek, the lower reaches of the Cooper Creek and Diamantina pass through the desert. On the northern edge of the desert are the settlements of Birdsville, Cordillo Downs, Gidgella and Innaminka, on the south side - Itadanna. On the northwestern outskirts is the Laguna Goyder swamp.
– 8 – Sturt Stony Desert – (SA, QLD)
– Sturt Stony Desert
The stone desert, which occupies 0.3% of the territory of Australia, is located in the state of South Australia and is an accumulation of sharp small stones. Local aborigines did not sharpen their arrows, but simply collected stone tips here. The desert got its name in honor of Charles Sturt (Charles Sturt), a traveler who in 1844 tried to reach the center of Australia in search of the inland sea. A heroic attempt to penetrate the desert interior of the continent led him to the Stone Desert, later named in his honor (Sturt's Stony Desert), where he had to spend half a year in "imprisonment" in the town of Preservation Creek.
Charles Sturt was the first white settler to discover the bed of the Darling River, which he named after the governor of the colony, and walked along it for nearly 2,500 km. However, the expedition had to be interrupted, because due to the drought, the water of the Darling River became salty. He also discovered the Simpson Desert.
With a few companions, horses, and 15 weeks' worth of food, Sturt reached one of the driest and most threatening places on the continent, the Simpson Desert, the southeastern part of which became known as Sturt's Stony Desert. This vast desert plain, dotted with sharp-angled red silicified rock fragments, cracked by temperature changes with a loud sound of gun shots, and almost devoid of vegetation, was a satanic landscape. It was September, the beginning of spring.
Smooth, like a table, sections of rubble desert, similar in appearance to the Sahara regs, occupy vast areas in the Sturt Desert. The very famous red colored sands are also found here. But dune fields occupy a small area in the region compared to gibbons.
– 9 – Tirari Desert – (SA)
– Kalamurina Dune, Tirari Desert
IN Tirari Desert, located in the state of South Australia and occupying 0.2% of the mainland, one of the most severe climatic conditions in Australia, due to high temperatures and virtually no rain. Its area is 15,250 km². The Tirari Desert contains several salt lakes, including Lake Eyre, as well as sand dunes running from north to south. The desert was discovered by Europeans in 1866.
In the Tirari desert are the largest sandy massifs, in which numerous fossils and bones of fossil animals have been found.
– 10 – Pedirka Desert – (SA)
– Pedirka Desert
Pedirka Desert located in the state of South Australia, 250 kilometers from the famous town of Coober Pedy.
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Australian deserts are divided into several types, among which the country's scientists distinguish mountainous and foothill deserts, rocky and sandy, as well as clay.
About 32% of the area of the continent is occupied by sandy deserts.
In second place are rocky deserts - they occupy about 13% of the area of all desert territories. Large-stony deserts are located on the foothill plains.
The deserts of Australia occupy almost half of the entire surface of the continent. For this, Australia is even sometimes called the continent of deserts. But the rest of the continent's surface remains dry most of the year. Of course, such harsh conditions do not contribute to rich vegetation - in the Western Desert you can find only acacia-mulga, eucalyptus and spinifex.
It can be concluded that Australia is the most arid continent on earth. The explanation for this must be sought in the climatic conditions determined by the geographical position of the continent, the vast water surface of the Pacific Ocean and the close proximity of the Asian continent. In addition, most of the deserts of the continent are in the subtropics.
The Great Sandy, or, as it is also called, the Western Desert belongs to the sandy-saline type. The relief of the desert almost entirely consists of ergs - this is the local name for sandy massifs, consisting of dunes, dunes, flying sands and salt marshes. The Great Sandy Desert has a unique feature: due to the predominance of the trade winds in this area, the sand turns into high, up to 15 meters high ridges. The length of each such dune is about 50 km. This desert is one of the most dangerous in Australia - it rains here in small quantities and not every year, there are no permanent rivers.
Of the animals in this desert, there are the dingo dog, the Moloch lizard, the red kangaroo, the goannas and several marsupials - the rabbit bandicoot, comb-tailed mice and rufus moles. In a word, typical Australian fauna. Of the birds in the conditions of hot sands, only two or three species of parrots have learned to survive.
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The early explorers of Australia referred to the Gibson Desert as "a great rolling desert of gravel". This is true: the entire surface of this desert is covered with rubble - material unsuitable for agriculture. This area was discovered in 1874. Unlike Western, on the territory of the Gibson Desert there are several natural reservoirs - these are saline lakes.
Although the desert is poor in vegetation and wildlife, here you can meet some representatives of the Australian fauna and flora. In particular, acacia and spinifex, and from the animals of the marsupial badger, red kangaroo and emu, grass wren and moloch lizard. Some of these animals are threatened with extinction - marsupial badgers, which previously inhabited about 70% of Australia, have now declined significantly. The reason for this is the low ability to reproduce, as well as the extermination of animals by poachers.
The Victoria Desert is a clear confirmation and proof that Australia is not in vain called the driest continent on Earth. It is a huge space located in Western and South Australia. Travelers who have explored this desert have even found something poetic in this sun-baked landscape: picturesque folds of sand, which, thanks to the northwest and southeast winds, fit parallel and are colored in brown-red, yellowish, ash and purple. Only eucalyptus, acacia and spinifex grow in the sands of Victoria.
This desert is almost completely devoid of water sources and is extremely difficult to access both for habitation and for research. Despite this, the Myrning Kogara tribes live in the Great Victoria Desert, trying to preserve the traditional way of life. Also noteworthy is the creation of the protected Mamungari Park on the outskirts of the desert, where you can watch birds, plants and some rare animals.
The Victoria Desert is also known as the world capital of opals - their rich deposits are found in a place called Coober Pedy. This town among tourists is better known for its underground dwellings, which the workers equipped in worked out drifts.
This desert was discovered thanks to the desire of the Australian government to find new areas for grazing livestock and people. However, as one would expect, the desire to use the Gibson Desert or, as it was called at first, Aruntu, for this purpose, turned out to be in vain. By the way, she deceived the expectations of oil seekers as well - the search was carried out in the 70s of the 20th century. Currently, several protected areas have been established in the Gibson Desert. One of them - Simpson Desert National Park - is considered the largest. However, rare animals or plants cannot be found inside it - most visitors come here to experience the silence of the desert while driving an off-road vehicle.
Lake Eyre, the largest lake on the mainland, although salty, is also not empty - it attracts eagles, ducks, gulls and Australian pelicans. Budgerigars and kingfishers, finches and wheatears, as well as swallows and pink cockatoos have chosen trees rare in this area - acacias.
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As in any desert, the flora is represented by thorns and drought-resistant grasses: spinifex and eucalyptus, and the flora is represented by lizards and rodents: marsupial jerboa, desert bandicoot, marsupial mole, marsupial mouse, ubiquitous dingoes and kangaroos, as well as wild camels.
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The desert is located within the Nambung National Park near the city of Cervantes in Western Australia. Here are located free-standing stones, which are a combination of the remains of trees that once grew here, the remains of sea shells and marine life.
Small Sandy Desert
The Little Sandy Desert is located in Western Australia south of the Great Sandy Desert, in the east it connects with the Gibson Desert. There are several lakes in the Lesser Sandy Desert, the largest of which is Lake Disapoinmet in the north, into which the River Seyviori flows. The area of the Malaya Sandy Desert is 101 thousand sq. km. In these parts is the only settlement of Parnngurr. Through the Little Sandy Desert from the city of Vilun to Halls Creek lies the only road for cattle driving 1.5 thousand kilometers long.
The Tirari Desert is located in South Australia. Its area is 15,250 sq. km. In terms of relief, the Tirari Desert is similar to the Simpson Desert, there is an area with fossil deposits. In the north, the Tirari Desert passes into the Simpson Desert, in the east it borders on the Strzelecki Desert. Part of the desert is part of Lake Eyre National Park.
Rocky and sandy desert The Tanami Desert is located northwest of Alice Springs. It is a desert steppe covered with sandy plains, drying up salt lakes and swamps, small water formations of the Lander River. Tanami Desert Area 292,194 sq. km. In some places gold is being mined.
The Strzelecki Desert is located in the southeast in the states of South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, northeast of Lake Eyre, north of the Flinders Range. In the northwest, the Strzelecki Desert passes into the Simpson Desert. The area of the desert is 39,830 km. It was discovered in 1845 and named after the Polish explorer Pavel Strzelecki.
The Sturt Desert is located in South Australia. The desert got its name in honor of Charles Sturt (Charles Sturt), who in 1844 tried to reach the center of Australia. For the most part, the Sturt Desert is a collection of sharp small stones. Therefore, the local natives did not sharpen their arrows, but simply collected stone tips here.
The Pedirka Desert is a small desert in South Australia with an area of about 1250 square kilometers located 100 km northwest of the city of Odnadatta and 250 km northeast of Coober Pedy, a city known as the opal capital of the world and famous for its underground dwellings. The sands of Pedirka are red. The desert is not considered popular with nature lovers and is gradually being built up.
Interestingly, some Australian deserts, namely those located in the western part of the continent, are located higher than the rest of the relief - about 200 meters above sea level. There are also those that rise to 600 meters. Despite the exceptional severity of the deserts that make up most of the continent, travelers and explorers go to Australia at all times of the year, for whom this country is a constant source of new discoveries. There are several travel agencies in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne that specialize in organizing car tours of the Australian deserts.
Later called the Simpson Desert, was the Englishman Charles Sturt (1795-1869). He led a special expedition, which had a task from the governor of Australia to find sources of fresh water in these parts: the government was interested in the prospects for uncharted places for people to live and graze. Sturt himself believed that there were fertile oases somewhere in the center of the country, because his track record already included such discoveries in other deserts of the continent. But this desert did not reveal to him the slightest sign that somewhere there was water. And the expedition set off on its way back to Adelaide. For another year, Sturt and his people traveled to this city, tormented by thirst and scurvy along the way, in order to convey the news that their hopes were in vain ... Together with the Sturt desert, this territory since 1926. began to be indicated on the maps of the country as the region of Arunta. Until 1929, when geologist Cecil Medigen flew over the area and named it after Alfred Allen Simpson, President of the South Australian Chapter of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. In 1936, the Sturt case was brought to an end by the expedition of Edmund Albert Colson. He and his companions on camels traveled the whole desert.
In 1960-1970s. Here they were looking not for water, but for oil. But to no avail. In 1967-1977. Several protected areas have been established. The largest among them is the Simpson Desert National Park. Today its area is 10-120 km2. The park is visited mainly by lovers of off-road driving among the desert silence.
The hopes of Charles Sturt that the water in these places must come to the surface somewhere were not entirely groundless, in the truest sense of the word. It turns out. Near the rivers there are small villages of pastoralists. But this is also all the inhabitants of the Simpson Desert, or Arunta, as it is still often called from old memory and for brevity. As for its soils, these are not only sands, but also stony, finely gravel, and clay areas - on the approaches to the salt lake Eyre, the largest lake on the mainland (area 9500 km 2, in those years when it rains, it can spill up to 15000 km 2). In dune regions, the most common plant is spinifex grass, xerophytic (that is, drought-resistant) acacias and eucalyptus trees come across. The most common representatives of the local fauna, as in all the deserts of the world, are lizards and rodents. Among the latter endemics are comb-tailed marsupial mice, found only in this part of the continent, as well as other Australian animals: marsupial jerboa, desert bandicoot, marsupial mole, fat-tailed marsupial mouse, and larger ones - wild dog dingo, large red kangaroo, wild camels. On the outskirts of the desert, near water sources, albeit salty, there are spotted ducks, gulls, Australian pelicans. Wedge-tailed eagles soar in the sky. Budgerigars, red-backed kingfishers, zebra finches, wheatears, black-headed tree martins and pink cockatoos live in thickets of acacias.
Desert in Central Australia.
Its main part is located in the Northern Territory (a subject of the Commonwealth of Australia, slightly smaller in status than the state), as well as in the states of Queensland and South Australia.
Nearest major city: Adelaide (South Australia).
Nearest villages: Birdsville, Oudnadatta.
Major rivers: Todd, Plenty, Hale, Hay.
largest lake: Air (salty); in the south of the region there are many small drying salt lakes.
ATTRACTIONS
■ Simpson Desert National Park (Queensland);
■ Simpson Desert Regional Reserve (South Australia);
■ Wijira National Park (South Australia);
■ Lake Eyre.
CURIOUS FACTS
■ On the outskirts of the Simpson desert, there are ... floods. This phenomenon is due to the fact that rainwater from rainstorms passing outside the desert gradually flows down to its borders. This desert is considered the largest natural drainage system. In addition, sometimes here (on average, this happens once every 10-12 years) there are heavy downpours (munsun, local), when almost the annual rainfall can fall. Then even the dry riverbeds (in Australia they are called "screams"), going to Lake Eyre, are filled with water for several hours. The largest of these "creeks" are Diamantina, Georgina and Cooper Creek.
■ The sand dunes of the Simpson Desert, stretching parallel to each other for many kilometers, are called the longest such formations in the world.
■ There are no specially built roads in the Simpson Desert, but due to the conditions of the desert, well-knurled paths, the so-called outback tracks, laid by geologists who worked here in the 1960s and 1970s, have been preserved.
