Great Sandy Desert

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use Australian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox valley The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,<ref name="IBRA 5.1">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="IBRA 6.1">IBRA Version 6.1 Template:Webarchive data</ref> located in the northeast of Western Australia straddling the Pilbara and southern Kimberley regions and extending east into the Northern Territory. It is the second largest desert in Australia after the Great Victoria Desert and encompasses an area of Template:Convert.<ref name="Ref_2010">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Ref_2009">Template:Cite web</ref> The Gibson Desert 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 dunes.Template:Cn

In the north-east of the desert there is a meteorite impact crater, the Wolfe Creek crater.Template:Cn

"Fairy circles", which are circular patches of land barren of plants, varying between 2Template:Convert 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.<ref name=walsh2023>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=angeloni2023>Template:Cite web</ref>

Population

The region is sparsely populated. The main populations consist of Aboriginal Australian communities and mining centres. The Aboriginal people of the desert fall into two main groups, the Martu in the west and the Pintupi in the east. Linguistically, they are speakers of multiple Western Desert languages. 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 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.<ref name="Wilurarra Creative">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 Template:Convert, but can be patchy. Many dry years end with a monsoon cloud mass or a tropical cyclone. Like many of Australia's deserts, precipitation is high by desert standards, but with the driest regions recording total rainfall a little below Template:Convert. 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Summer daytime temperatures are some of the highest in Australia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Regions further south average Template:Convert, 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Winters are short and warm; temperatures range from Template:Convert.

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name="eofe">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Animals in the region include feral camels and dingoes. Other mammalian inhabitants include bilbies, mulgara, marsupial moles, rufous hare-wallabies, and red kangaroos.

Varied types of lizards occur here, such as goannas (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.<ref name="Ref_2009a">Template:NatGeo ecoregion</ref>

See also

• Carnegie expedition of 1896
• Deserts of Australia
• Gary Junction Road
• List of deserts by area
• Telfer, Western Australia

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book