Which Australian desert is named after explorer Charles Sturt?

Which Australian desert is named after explorer Charles Sturt? The answer is the Sturt Stony Desert.

The Sturt Stony Desert lies in central-eastern Australia, mainly across northeastern South Australia, with parts extending into Queensland and New South Wales. It is named for explorer Charles Sturt, who encountered the region during his 1844 expedition while searching for the inland sea he believed existed near Australia’s centre.

Sturt’s party struggled across the hard, stone-covered surface: the sharp stones made horses limp and wore down the hooves of cattle and sheep. Modern geology explains the landscape differently from Sturt’s own theory. The “gibber” stones are the surviving fragments of sandstone sheets gradually broken apart by weathering, leaving a tightly packed desert pavement.

The desert is not the same as the nearby Simpson or Strzelecki deserts, although all are part of Australia’s arid interior. The Sturt Stony Desert is especially notable for its stony surface rather than extensive mobile dunes. It also supports wildlife such as the kowari, a small nocturnal carnivorous marsupial adapted to gibber plains.