Lake Amadeus

Salt lake

The Lake Amadeus is a salt lake in the southwestern region of Australia's Northern Territory, which lies 275 km southwest of Alice Springs. The lake is located north of Uluru- Kata Tjuta National Park (Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Mt Conner ) in the Amadeus Basin, an approximately 170,000 square kilometers of sedimentary basins.

History

The British-Australian explorer Ernest Giles came the first European to 1872 during one of his expeditions into the interior of Australia to the salt lake. He planned to appoint, in whose debt he stood him after Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. The however, urged Giles to name the lake after the Spanish King Amadeus, which he was himself again obliged.

Landscape

The Lake Amadeus is part of a series of salt lakes, over 500 km from Lake Hopkins extend to the Finke River. The area around the lake is a major Australian drinking water resources with numerous sources. The lake is surrounded by other small salt lakes and achieved at high water level an area of ​​approximately 160 km in length and 30 km width, but dries to climate effects sometimes almost completely, forming salt crusts. The Amadeus Lake and the surrounding lakes are in the possession of the three Aboriginal owned agricultural companies Petermann, Katiti and Haasts Bluff. A small area on the western end of the lake is used for agriculture from Curtin Springs Farm.

In the years 1997-2005 the area of bush fires was haunted, burned 93 percent of the area around the lake. In this area, numerous camels find water and suitable food to live there. They threaten the existence of the desert plant Quandong, a subspecies of Santalum acuminatum, the wearing of October to February sweet fruits.