Sturt Stony Desert (previously Sturt's Stony Desert) is an area in the north-east of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, far south western border area of Queensland and the far west of New South Wales. It was named by

Charles Sturt Charles Napier Sturt (28 April 1795 – 16 June 1869) was a British officer and explorer of Australia, and part of the European exploration of Australia. He led several expeditions into the interior of the continent, starting from Sydney and la ...

in 1844, while he was trying to find the inland sea which he believed lay at the centre of Australia. The stones caused his horses to limp and wore down the hooves of the cattle and sheep which Sturt had taken on the expedition. The larger

Simpson Desert The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Australian desert, with an area of . The desert is underlain by the ...

is located to the west and the

Strzelecki Desert The Strzelecki Desert is located in the Far North Region of South Australia, South West Queensland and western New South Wales. It is positioned in the northeast of the Lake Eyre Basin, and north of the Flinders Ranges. Two other deserts occup ...

is to the south east. Between these two dunefields is the Gason Dome, upon which the Sturt Stony Desert is located. To the south west of Sturt Stony Desert is the

Tirari Desert The Tirari Desert is a desert in the eastern part of the Far North region of South Australia. It stretches 212 km from north to south and 153 km from east to west. Location and description The Tirari Desert features salt lakes and ...

. The

Birdsville Track The Birdsville Track is a notable outback road in Australia. The track runs between Birdsville in south-western Queensland and Marree, a small town in the north-eastern part of South Australia. It traverses three deserts along the route, the St ...

is a route between Marree in South Australia and

Birdsville Birdsville is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Birdsville had a population of 110 people. It is a popular tourist destination with many people using it as a starting point acro ...

in Queensland.

Landscape

Much of the desert is covered by

gibber A desert pavement, also called reg (in the western Sahara), serir (eastern Sahara), gibber (in Australia), or saï (central Asia) is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and cob ...

. Sturt suggested the closely compacted stones were the result of currents moving across an ancient seafloor. However the gibber plains originated from desert

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

sheets which once covered the area. Weather has slowly broken down the sandstone with the harder fragments remaining. Both circular and stepped

gilgai A gilgai is a small, ephemeral#Geographical examples, ephemeral lake formed from a depression in the soil surface in expanding clay soils. Additionally, the term "gilgai" is used to refer to the overall micro-relief in such areas, consisting of mo ...

have been found in the desert.

Ecology

The desert is part of the Tirari-Sturt stony desert

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...

. It is home to the

Kowari The Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor (OPAL) is a 20 megawatt (MW) swimming pool nuclear research reactor. Officially opened in April 2007, it replaced the High Flux Australian Reactor as Australia's only nuclear reactor, and is locat ...

, a small but feisty

carnivorous marsupial Dasyuromorphia (, meaning "hairy tail" in Greek) is an order comprising most of the Australian carnivorous marsupials, including quolls, dunnarts, the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, and the thylacine. In Australia, the exceptions include the o ...

which hunts nocturnally on the vast gibber plains. One of the kowari's main prey is the Long-haired Rat, a native rodent whose population occasionally booms to extraordinary numbers. During the booms thousands of rats can sing from their burrows, creating a hum which rises through the earth and fills the desert night. Because of this, they are sometimes called the Singing Rat. Booming rat populations provide bountiful food for kowaris, inland taipan,

dingoes The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient ( basal) lineage of dog found in Australia. Its taxonomic classification is debated as indicated by the variety of scienti ...

and the rare Letter-winged Kite.

References

External links

*
Natural history of Sturt Stony Desert
{{coord, 27, S, 140, E, region:AU_scale:500000_type:landmark, display=title Deserts of South Australia Deserts of New South Wales Deserts of Queensland Lake Eyre basin Ecoregions of South Australia IBRA subregions Charles Sturt

Landscape

Ecology

See also

References

External links