Lake Mackay

Lake Mackay (located at coord|22|30|S|128|35|E|region:AU|display=inline,title) is one of hundreds of dry lakebeds scattered throughout Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The photograph [ [http://www.nasa.gov National Aeronautics and Space Administration] ] documents the appearance of the dry parts of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert, Gibson Desert, and Tanami Desert. Lake Mackay measures approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers) east-west and north-south. The darker areas of the lakebed are indicative of some form of desert vegetation or algae, some moisture within the soils of the dry lake, and the lowest elevations where pooling of water occurs. In this arid environment, salts and other minerals are carried to the surface through capillary action caused by evaporation, thereby producing the white reflective surface. Visible are various brown hills scattered across the eastern half of the lake and east-west-oriented sand ridges south of the lake.

Lake Mackay features prominently in the Aboriginal Dreaming narratives of the Western Desert. The main mythological accounts of its origins can be clustered into three distinct themes, all of which contain references to a fierce bushfire that devastated the land and formed the lake [Graham, L.D. (2003) The Creation of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) in Pintupi/Kukatja Dreamings, Australian Aboriginal Studies 2003/1, 30-38. [http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research_program/publications/australian_aboriginal_studies/2003/abstracts_2003#Graham Abstract] ] .

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