The Gibson Desert is a large desert in

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, largely in an almost pristine state. It is about in size, making it the fifth largest desert in Australia, after the Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Tanami and Simpson deserts. The Gibson Desert is both an interim Australian bioregion and desert

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

Location and description

The Gibson Desert is located between the saline Kumpupintil Lake and Lake Macdonald along the Tropic of Capricorn, south of the Great Sandy Desert, east of the Little Sandy Desert, and north of the

Great Victoria Desert The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explore ...

. The altitude rises to just above in places. As noted by early Australian explorers such as Ernest Giles large portions of the desert are characterized by gravel-covered terrains covered in thin desert grasses and it also contains extensive areas of undulating red sand plains and dunefields, low rocky/gravelly ridges and substantial upland portions with a high degree of

laterite Laterite is a soil type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by intensive and prolo ...

formation. The sandy soil of the lateritic ''buckshot'' plains is rich in iron. Several isolated salt-water lakes occur in the centre of the region and to the southwest a system of small lakes follow paleo-drainage features. Groundwater sources include portions of the Officer Basin and Canning Basin.

Climate

Rainfall Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...

in the Gibson Desert ranges from annually, while evaporation rates are in the range of per year. The climate is generally hot; summer maximum temperatures rise above whilst in winter the maximum may fall to and minimum winter temperatures dip to .Great Victoria and Gibson Deserts, Western Australia
fro

by Michael Thompson, verified 2006-01-23.

Name

The Gibson Desert was named by explorer Ernest Giles after a member of his party, Alfred Gibson, who became lost and presumably died in this desert during an expedition in 1874.

Indigenous habitation

In much of the region, especially the drier western portion, the majority of people living in the area are

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

. In 1984, due to a severe

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

which had dried up all of the springs and depleted the bush foods, a group of the Pintupi people who were living a traditional semi-

nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

desert-dwelling life, walked out of a remote

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

in the central-eastern portion of the Gibson Desert (northeast of Warburton) and made contact for the first time with mainstream Australian society. They are believed to have been perhaps the last uncontacted tribe in Australia. On the eastern margin of the region, population centres (which include people of European descent) include Warburton, Mantamaru and Warakurna. Young Indigenous adults from the Gibson Desert region work in the Wilurarra Creative programs to maintain and develop their culture.Wilurarra Creative
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References

External links

Gibson Desert 1997
; a photo album of the Gibson Desert by Stuart Jackson, Verified 2006-01-23
Across Australia Motorbike Tour