It was named in 1623 for the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, a century and a half before Cook (1623)
Pieter de Carpentier; Jan Carstenszoon charted the coast for the VOC
Geography · Physical geography
The Gulf of Carpentaria
charted by the Dutch from 1606; named in 1623
Shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia — between Arnhem Land and Cape York
A shallow, almost enclosed sea biting into the northern coast of Australia between Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, opening north to the Arafura Sea. It is about 300,000 square kilometres in extent but nowhere much more than 70 metres deep, and at the last ice age it was dry land holding a great lake. Dutch navigators charted it long before the British came.
How to spot them
- ▸A shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia, named after a Dutch governor-general
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Arnhem Land', 'Cape York', 'Groote Eylandt', 'Burketown', 'Morning Glory', 'Wellesley Islands'
- ▸The gulf where a rare rolling cloud can be predicted each spring
- ▸Its rivers include the Roper, the Flinders and the Mitchell; Karumba is its main Queensland port
Key facts
Willem Janszoon's Duyfken touched its eastern shore in 1606, the first recorded European landfall in Australia (1606)
At the Pennefather River on Cape York Peninsula
Each spring a rolling tube of cloud up to a thousand kilometres long sweeps in over Burketown
The Morning Glory, an atmospheric solitary wave; the only place it can be reliably predicted
At the height of the last ice age it held a vast shallow freshwater lake, not a sea
Sea level was about 120 m lower and the Sahul Shelf was dry
Its largest island, a source of manganese and a stronghold of the Anindilyakwa people, lies off Arnhem Land
Groote Eylandt — Dutch for 'large island'
Nowhere much more than about 70 metres deep, it is one of the shallowest seas of its size in the world
Average depth roughly 55 to 66 m
A submerged coral reef province beneath it went unrecognised until 2004 (2004)
Drowned reefs on its floor, remnants of higher sea levels
Quick-fire facts
- •Area about 300,000 km²; maximum depth around 69 m
- •Bounded by Arnhem Land (Northern Territory) to the west and Cape York Peninsula (Queensland) to the east
- •It opens north into the Arafura Sea, which separates Australia from New Guinea
- •Named in 1623 after Pieter de Carpentier, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies
- •The Duyfken under Willem Janszoon made Europe's first recorded Australian landfall on its eastern shore in 1606
- •Groote Eylandt, off its western side, is its largest island and a major manganese producer
- •Karumba, at the mouth of the Norman River, is the main Queensland port; Burketown lies nearby
- •The Morning Glory cloud appears most reliably from late September to mid-November
- •At the last glacial maximum the gulf floor was dry land with a freshwater lake at its centre
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Roger K. Smith, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich — The Morning Glory and related phenomena
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Gulf of Carpentaria