Lake Mackay

Lake Mackay (Wilkinkarra)
From space (November 1989)
Lake Mackay (Wilkinkarra) Location on the Northern Territory and Western Australian border
Location	Western Australia and Northern Territory
Coordinates	22°30′S 128°35′E / 22.500°S 128.583°E / -22.500; 128.583Coordinates: 22°30′S 128°35′E / 22.500°S 128.583°E / -22.500; 128.583
Type	Salt lake
Native name	Wilkinkarra
Basin countries	Australia
Max. length	100 km (62 mi)
Max. width	100 km (62 mi)
Surface area	3,494 km2 (1,349 sq mi)

Lake Mackay, known as Wilkinkarra to the Indigenous Pintupi people, is the largest of hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes scattered throughout the Pilbara and northern parts of the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia^[1] and the Northern Territory. It is located within the Great Sandy Desert.

The lake is the largest in Western Australia and has a surface area of 3,494 square kilometres (1,349 sq mi).^[2] Its elevation ranges between 355 m (1,165 ft) and 370 m (1,210 ft) above mean sea-level.^[3]

Description[]

Lake Mackay is the fourth largest lake in Australia.^[4] It measures approximately 100 kilometres (60 mi) 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.

Known as Wilkinkarra to the local Indigenous population, 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.^[5]

Explorer David Carnegie in 1897 predicted the lake's existence when he passed by it to the west as quoted in his book Spinifex and Sand.

May 9th we left the well on a Southerly course, and were soon amongst the ridges, which continued for the next two days. The night of the 11th, having skirted a line of rough cliffs, we camped about three miles North of a very prominent single hill, which I named Mount Webb, after W. F. Webb, Esq., of Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. As the sun rose that morning the mirage of a lake of apparently great size was visible for 90° of the horizon — that is, from East round to South. Neither from the cliffs that we skirted, nor from Mount Webb, was any lake visible, but it is more than probable that a large salt lake exists in this locality, possibly connecting, in a broken line, Lake White and Lake Macdonald.^{[citation needed]}

It was given its present name after Donald George Mackay.

The lake was the birthplace of prominent Indigenous artist Linda Syddick Napaltjarri,^[6] and the area in which artist grew up.^[7]

Namesakes[]

The Northern Territory locality of Lake Mackay, whose boundaries include the lake, was named after it in 2007.^[8]

Mackay Lacus, one of the lakes on Saturn's moon Titan, is named after Lake Mackay.^[9]

Gallery[]

• 

  2017 satellite photograph taken by Copernicus Sentinel-2B

See also[]

• List of lakes of Australia
• Lake Mackay hare-wallaby

References[]