The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data located in the northeast of

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 ...

straddling the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

and southern

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

regions and extending east into the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. It is the second largest desert in Australia after 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 ...

and encompasses an area of . The

Gibson Desert The Gibson Desert is a large desert in Western Australia, 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 ...

lies to the south and the Tanami Desert lies to the east of the Great Sandy Desert.

Features

The Great Sandy Desert contains large ergs, often consisting of longitudinal

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

s. In the north-east of the desert there is a

meteorite impact An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. Impact events have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or meteoroids and have minimal eff ...

crater, the Wolfe Creek crater. " Fairy circles", which are circular patches of land barren of plants, varying between in diameter and often encircled by a ring of stimulated growth of grass, are found in the western part of the desert, in the Pilbara region. It has not yet been proven what causes these formations, but one theory suggests that they have been built and inhabited by Australian harvester termites since the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Population

The region is sparsely populated. The main populations consist of

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

communities and mining centres. The Aboriginal people of the desert fall into two main groups, the Martu in the west and the

Pintupi The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into th ...

in the east. Linguistically, they are speakers of multiple

Western Desert language The Western Desert language, or Wati, is a dialect cluster of Australian Aboriginal languages in the Pama–Nyungan family. The name ''Wati'' tends to be used when considering the various varieties to be distinct languages, ''Western Desert'' w ...

s. Many of these Indigenous people were forcibly removed from their lands during the late 18th, 19th, and the early 20th centuries, to be relocated to other settlements, such as

Papunya Papunya ( Pintupi-Luritja: ''Warumpi'') is a small Indigenous Australian community roughly northwest of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is known as an important centre for Contemporary Indigenous Australian ar ...

in the Northern Territory. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, some of the original inhabitants returned. Young adults, from the Great Sandy Desert region, travel to and work in the Wilurarra Creative programs to maintain and develop their culture, and a greater sense of community.Wilurarra Creative
/ref>

Climate

Rainfall is low throughout the coast and, especially further north, is strongly seasonal. Areas near the Kimberley have an average rainfall that exceeds , but can be patchy. Many dry years end with a monsoon cloud mass or a

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

. Like many of Australia's deserts, precipitation is high by

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

standards, but with the driest regions recording total rainfall a little below . The heat of Australia’s ground surface, in turn, creates a massive evaporation cycle, which partially explains the higher-than-normal desert rainfall. This region is one which gives rise to the heat lows, which help drive the NW monsoon. Almost all the rain regionally comes from monsoon thunderstorms, or the occasional tropical cyclone rain depression. Annually, for most of the area, there are about 20–30 days where thunderstorms form. However, in the north and bordering the Kimberley, 30-40 per year is the average. Summer daytime temperatures are some of the highest in Australia. Regions further south average , except when monsoonal cloud cover is active. Several people have died in this region during seasonal flooding, after their vehicles were stuck or broken down on remote dirt roads. Conversely, a few travellers have had their vehicles malfunction during the hottest times of the year, with dehydration, sun exposure and heatstroke being the predominant causes of death. Winters are short and warm; temperatures range from . Frost does not occur in most of the area. The regions bordering the Gibson Desert in the far southeast may record a light frost or two every year. Away from the coast winter nights can still be chilly in comparison to the warm days.

Economy

Indigenous art is a huge industry in central Australia. Mines, most importantly the Telfer gold mine and Nifty copper mine, and cattle stations are found in the far west. Telfer is one of the largest gold mines in Australia. The undeveloped Kintyre uranium deposit lies south of Telfer.

Fauna and flora

The vegetation of the Great Sandy Desert is dominated by spinifex. Animals in the region include feral camels and

dingo The dingo (either included in the species ''Canis familiaris'', or considered one of the following independent taxa: ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage ...

es. Other mammalian inhabitants include bilbies, mulgara,

marsupial mole Marsupial moles, the Notoryctidae family, are two species of highly specialized marsupial mammals that are found in the Australian interior. They are small burrowing marsupials that anatomically converge on fossorial placental mammals, such as ...

s, rufous hare-wallabies, and

red kangaroo The red kangaroo (''Osphranter rufus'') is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the Largest mammals#Marsupials (Marsupialia), largest extant marsupial. It is found across mainland Australia, exce ...

s. Varied types of lizards occur here, such as

goanna A goanna is any one of several species of lizard of the genus ''Monitor lizard, Varanus'' found in Australia and Southeast Asia. Around 70 species of ''Varanus'' are known, 25 of which are found in Australia. This varied group of carnivorous r ...

s (including the large perentie), thorny devils, and bearded dragons. Some of the bird-life found within the desert include the rare Alexandra's parrot, the mulga parrot and the scarlet-chested parrot.

References

External links

{{Coord, 20, S, 125, E, source:dewiki_region:AU-WA_scale:5000000_type:landmark, display=title Biogeography of the Northern Territory Biogeography of Western Australia Deserts of the Northern Territory Deserts of Western Australia Ergs Pilbara Kimberley (Western Australia)