thumb|A [[four wheel drive in the Gibson Desert]]

The Gibson Desert is a large desert in Western Australia, mainly 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. It is inhabited by a small group of Indigenous Australians.

Location and description

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

Climate

Rainfall 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 .

Name

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

See also

  • Deserts of Australia
  • List of deserts by area
  • Carnegie expedition of 1896

References

Further reading

  • Thackway, R and I D Cresswell (1995) An interim biogeographic regionalisation for Australia : a framework for setting priorities in the National Reserves System Cooperative Program Version 4.0 Canberra : Australian Nature Conservation Agency, Reserve Systems Unit, 1995.
  • Gibson Desert 1997 ; a photo album of the Gibson Desert by Stuart Jackson, Verified 2006-01-23
  • Across Australia Motorbike Tour