Gibson Desert

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Related to Gibson Desert: Great Sandy Desert, Spencer Gulf

Gibson Desert

a desert in W central Australia, between the Great Sandy Desert and the Victoria Desert: salt marshes, salt lakes, and scrub. Area: about 220 000 sq. km (85 000 sq. miles)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Gibson Desert

a desert in western Australia between the Great Sandy Desert to the north and the Great Victoria Desert to the south.

The surface of the Gibson Desert is a plateau (elevation, 300-500 m) formed from Precambrian rocks and covered with rock debris. It is a product of the destruction of an ancient ferruginous carapace. There are remnant mountain ridges of granite and sandstone rising to 762 m in the east and salt marshes in the west. Precipitation is less than 250 mm a year and very irregular. There are sparse undergrowths of shrub acacia, oraches, and spinifex. There is extensive pasture cattle raising. The Gibson Desert was discovered in 1873 by an English expedition led by E. Giles and was named after amember of the expedition, A. Gibson.

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Davidson limited the distribution of this type of footwear to a small area of the Gibson Desert. However, the Warnman, referred to earlier, also used bark sandals, and Davidson may have been confusing the Warnman term mungar with other similar words related to bark sandals.

Davidson (1947:116-18) described the use of such footwear as restricted to the southern sections of the Northern Territory and from South Australia, west of Lake Eyre, extending into Western Australia; in Western Australia the use of the kadaitcha shoe was limited to the Gibson Desert, extending south-east into the Eastern Goldfields region and north-east into the northern Pilbara.

Elsewhere they are called jina wipia ('foot-feather') by the Manjiljara of the Gibson Desert, and multjara and jina wipia by the southern Western Desert peoples.

Shoes of invisibility and invisible shoes: Australian hunters and gatherers and ideas on the origins of footwear

The Gibson Desert, to the south on the Tropic of Capricorn and occupying the lower part of the Western Australian Shield, is a sandy and stony desert.

South of the Gibson Desert, separated from it by the Warburton Range and other smaller ranges, is the Great Victoria Desert, located on the border between Western Australia and South Australia.

The five most important are: the Great Sandy Desert and Gibson Desert in the northeast of Western Australia; the Great Victoria Desert in Western Australia and South Australia; the Simpson Desert, in the southeast of Northern Territory; and the Sturt Desert, where the state frontiers of Queens-land, South Australia, and New South Wales meet.

The hot tropical deserts and subdeserts

In which country are the Simpson and Gibson deserts? A South Africa B Australia C Egypt D Chile 14.

Puzzles

Since the arrival of white settlers its range has been severely reduced from about 70% of the mainland to scattered populations in deserts, spinifex plains and acacia shrublands in isolated and semi-arid areas: the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory, southwestern Queensland, the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts and the Pilbara of Western Australia.

A bilby round-up

Australia's 600,000 wild camels roam across the centre of the country in areas straddling the Simpson, Great Sandy and Gibson deserts. About 12,000 camels, first introduced here in 1840, were imported between 1860 and 1907 as draught and riding beasts for people exploring the rugged interior.

New council to build business ties with East Timor; the new country of East Timor is looking to rebuild after its tumultuous past. Tamsyn Smith reports on how Australian businesses are helping with the process. (New Opportunities)

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