Great Victoria Desert
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Geographic location : | 29 ° S , 129 ° E |
| Surface: | 348,750 km² |
| Annual rainfall: | 150 - 250 mm |
| Average daily maximum temperature: |
30 ° C |
|
|
The Great Victoria Desert ( English Great Victoria Desert ) is the largest Australian desert in the south and west of the continent. It belongs to the Australian states of South Australia and Western Australia . The Great Victoria Desert is about 348,750 square kilometers in size .
Discovery story
The Great Victoria Desert was named after Queen Victoria . The name goes back to the British explorer Ernest Giles , who crossed the desert in 1875.
Nuclear tests
In the Great Victoria Desert in October 1953 found at the nuclear test site Emu Field two British plutonium bomb explosions take place, will have a significant fallout caused.
climate
The temperatures in the Great Victoria Desert are between 18 and 40 ° C; in the short winter (until the end of September) there can even be frost.
landscape
In the desert there are countless sand hills, but also grasslands and salt lakes . A special feature are the crescent-shaped dunes, which are mainly made of clay. They form on the leeward edges of episodic lakes from dry deposits of the lake floor.
Great Victoria Desert (center)
Serpentine Lakes (2011)
Flora and fauna
Most of the Great Victoria Desert is covered with open eucalyptus forests , especially hummock grassland and other grasses, and also with bushes. Only eight percent of the area is grassland. The Giles Corridor , which crosses the entire desert, is a narrow, continuous strip that is overgrown with acacias and bushes.
Some endangered mammal species live in the great desert, including the sand dune narrow-footed pouch mouse ( Sminthopsis psammophila ), the great pouch mole ( Notoryctes typhlops ), and the delicate comb-tailed pouch mouse ( Dasycercus cristicauda ). The dingo ( Canis lupus dingo ) exists north of the dingo fence . Feral cats and foxes that hunt vertebrates are common in this desert. There are more than 100 species of reptiles in this desert, including the giant monitor lizard ( Varanus giganteus ), thorn devil ( Moloch horridus ) and Gould's monitor lizard ( Varanus gouldii ), which can reach a length of 1.6 meters. Numerous geckos animate the arid area. The endangered bird species brown-breasted white- forehead ( Aphelocephala pectoralis ) lives in the desert, as do the thermometer chicken ( Leipoa ocellata ) and the night parakeet ( Geopsittacus occidentalis ), which is believed to have died out there.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ ga.gov.au : Desert , in English, accessed February 27, 2013
- ^ Emu Field, Australia Nuclear Weapons. (PDF) International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), accessed on January 5, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c eoearth.org : Deserts: Great Victoria Desert , in English, accessed March 5, 2013
- ↑ environment.gov.au ( Memento from June 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 862 kB): Great Sandy Desert bioregion , in English, accessed on March 5, 2013
