Within the Little Desert and Big Desert the landscape has been fashioned into a complex array of undulating sand plains, east-west aligned dunes and jumbled dunes. The largest individual areas of parabolic dunefields occur in the Big Desert in three east-west swathes to the west of the linear depression containing the Wimmera River system. The swathes are some 10-20 km wide and up to 90 km long. These dunefields include a broad ridge running south-east from the Pinnaroo Block as well as stranded ridges and associated swales. The northernmost swale crosses the fringe of the regional depression to the east of the Sunset Strip. |
Soil-landform unit | Unit description | Area (km2) |
Big Desert jumbled dunes | Sandplain with jumbled dunes | 478 |
Diapur ridge | Beach ridge and dunes | 93 |
Goroke plains and rises | Plains with prominent ridges | 118 |
Kiata rises | Gently undulating rises | 19 |
Little Desert linear dunes | Linear dunes | 22 |
Little Desert parabolic dunes | Parabolic dunes | 1064 |
Nhill lake and lunettes | Lake-lunette | 2 |
Wail parabolic dunes | Parabolic dunes | 33 |
Woorak clay plains | Grey clay plains | 18 |