Simpson Desert

Simpson Desert
Desert
NASA image showing dust storm on 16 December 2007
Name origin: Alfred Allen Simpson
Country	Australia
States	Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia
Area	176,500 km2 (68,147 sq mi)
Biome	Desert

Coordinates: 24°34′S 137°25′E / 24.57°S 137.42°E / -24.57; 137.42

The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth largest Australian desert, with an area of 176,500 km² (68,100 sq mi) and is the world's largest sand dune desert.

The desert is underlain by the Great Artesian Basin, one of the largest inland drainage areas in the world. Water from the basin rises to the surface at numerous natural springs, including Dalhousie Springs, and at bores drilled along stock routes, or during petroleum exploration. As a result of exploitation by such bores, the flow of water to springs has been steadily decreasing in recent years. It is also part of the Lake Eyre basin.

The Simpson Desert is an erg which contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes. These north-south oriented dunes are static, held in position by vegetation. They vary in height from 3 metres in the west to around 30 metres on the eastern side. The largest dune, Nappanerica, is 40 metres in height.

The explorer Charles Sturt, who visited the region from 1844–1846, was the first European to see the desert. In 1880 Augustus Poeppel, a surveyor with the South Australian Survey Department determined the border between Queensland and South Australia to the west of Haddon Corner and in doing so marked the corner point where the States of Queensland and South Australia meet the Northern Territory. After he returned to Adelaide, it was discovered that the links in his surveyor's chain had stretched. Poeppel’s border post was too far west by 300 metres. In 1884, surveyor Larry Wells moved the post to its proper position on the eastern bank of Lake Poeppel. The tri-state border is now known as Poeppel Corner. In January 1886 surveyor David Lindsay ventured into the desert from the western edge, in the process discovering and documenting, with the help of a Wangkangurru Aboriginal man, nine native wells and travelling as far east as the Queensland/Northern Territory border. In 1936 Ted Colson became the first non-indigenous person to cross the desert in its entirety, riding camels. The name Simpson Desert was coined by Cecil Madigan, after Alfred Allen Simpson, an Australian industrialist, philanthropist, geographer, and president of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. Mr Simpson was the owner of the Simpson washing machine company.