Great Sandy Desert
The Great Sandy Desert sits in the far northwest of Australia, in the state of Western Australia. As its name suggests, it is the sandiest of Australia's deserts, with long parallel sand dunes stretching for hundreds of kilometres across the landscape. The desert is the traditional home of the Martu Aboriginal people and contains the dramatic Wolfe Creek Crater, formed by a meteorite impact thousands of years ago.
- Areaapprox. 284,000 km²About the size of New Zealand
- CountryAustraliaWestern Australia, in the northwest
- Rainfallapprox. 250 mm/yearHigher in summer, near zero in winter
- Hottest tempapprox. 45 °CIn summer
- Famous featureWolfe Creek Craterapprox. 880 m wide meteorite crater
- Famous peopleMartuAboriginal traditional owners
Great Sandy compared to other Australian deserts
The Great Sandy is the second largest Australian desert, after the Great Victoria.
What is the Great Sandy Desert?
The Great Sandy is dominated by long parallel linear sand dunes, some stretching unbroken for over 50 km. The dunes are coloured a deep iron oxide red and create a striking landscape when viewed from the air. Between the dunes are corridors of harder ground covered in spinifex grass and scrubby trees. To the north, the desert blends into the Kimberley region with its rugged sandstone gorges. To the south, it merges into the Gibson Desert.
Wolfe Creek Crater
One of the most striking features of the Great Sandy is Wolfe Creek Crater, a near-perfect circular meteorite impact crater on the desert's northern edge. The crater is approx. 880 metres across and 60 metres deep, formed when a meteorite of approx. 50,000 tonnes struck the desert around 120,000 years ago. It is the second largest meteorite crater on Earth in which actual meteorite fragments have been found (after Arizona's Meteor Crater). The crater was known to local Djaru and Walmajarri Aboriginal people as Kandimalal, with traditional stories about its origin.
Surprisingly rich wildlife
Despite the dryness, the Great Sandy supports a rich variety of wildlife. The greater bilby, an endangered long-eared marsupial that digs burrows up to 3 metres deep, has one of its remaining strongholds here. Mulgaras (small carnivorous marsupials), spinifex hopping mice, several species of monitor lizard, and the thorny devil all live in the dunes. Larger animals include dingoes, red kangaroos and emus. The desert is also a refuge for several bird species that have been driven out of more populated areas by introduced predators and habitat loss.
The Martu
The Martu are the traditional owners of much of the Great Sandy Desert. They have lived in this country for tens of thousands of years and possess unmatched knowledge of how to find water and food in the desert. The Martu were among the last Aboriginal peoples to maintain a fully traditional desert lifestyle, with some groups not establishing regular contact with settled Australia until the 1960s. The Martu now manage large areas of their traditional lands as Indigenous Protected Areas, combining ancient knowledge with modern conservation techniques.
Deeper dive: linear dunes, the Canning Stock Route and Martu native title
The long parallel sand dunes of the Great Sandy are called linear dunes. They form where prevailing winds blow in one consistent direction year after year, gradually pushing sand into long ridges aligned with the wind. The dunes of the Great Sandy run roughly east-west, reflecting the consistent easterly winds. The corridors between the dunes are 200 to 500 metres wide and provide vital travel routes for wildlife (and historically for Aboriginal walking trails). Some linear dunes in the Great Sandy and the adjacent Gibson Desert run unbroken for over 200 km.
The Canning Stock Route is a 1,850 km cattle-droving trail that runs through the Great Sandy Desert from Halls Creek in the north to Wiluna in the south. It was surveyed and built between 1906 and 1910 to allow cattle to be moved from the Kimberley region to the southern markets. The route follows a chain of 51 wells dug at intervals along the way to provide water for the cattle and the drovers. The construction was controversial; several Aboriginal people were killed during the surveying, and many of the wells were dug at sites that were sacred to local people. The route is now closed to cattle but remains one of the most challenging and remote 4WD adventures in the world.
In 2002, the Martu people's native title claim over their traditional lands was recognised by the Federal Court of Australia, granting them legal control of around 136,000 square km of the Great Sandy and surrounding deserts. This was one of the largest native title determinations in Australian history. The Martu now manage their country through the Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation, combining the Martu Rangers programme (which carries out conservation work including traditional fire management) with cultural tourism, mineral exploration partnerships and other economic activities. The model has become an example of how indigenous communities can maintain culture and country while engaging with the modern economy.
The country is Australia. The other big Australian desert is the Great Victoria Desert.