Lake Torrens National Park

Lake Torrens National Park
IUCN Category Ia (Strict Nature Reserve)
Nearest town/city	Woomera
Coordinates	31°02′40″S 137°51′35″E
Area	5,677 km²
Established	1991
Managing authorities	Department for Environment and Heritage
Official site	Lake Torrens National Park pdf

Lake Torrens National Park is a national park in South Australia, 345 km north of Adelaide.

Environment

Geology

Lake Torrens is a 5,700 square kilometre endorheic saline rift lake in South Australia,and is located near the bottom of Australia. It forms part of the same rift valley that includes Spencer Gulf to the south and is approximately 240 km long. It is in the Lake Torrens National Park, and a permit is required to visit. Lake Torrens is usually a dry salt flat. It has been filled with water only once in the past 150 years - in 1989.

Birds

The lake has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supported up to 100,000 breeding Banded Stilts during the major filling event of 1989. It may occasionally support over 1% of the world population of Red-capped Plovers. Cinnamon Quail-thrushes are also common in the IBA.

History

Discovered by Edward John Eyre in 1839, for the following twenty years it was believed that Lake Torrens was an enormous horseshoe-shaped saltpan encircling the northern Flinders Ranges and blocking any path to the interior. The first European to penetrate the mythical barrier was A. C. Gregory from the north in March 1858; later the same year, an expedition under B. H. Babbage and Major Warburton in the north-west also crossed the non-existent barrier near modern Marree. Eyre's horseshoe lake was actually composed of Lake Frome, Lake Callabonna, Lake Blanche, Lake Gregory, Lake Eyre South, and Lake Torrens itself.

Gypsum var. selenite from Andamooka Ranges - Lake Torrens area

See also

• Protected areas of South Australia