Lake Harris is an

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...

in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

to the north of the

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named aft ...

located about northwest of the state capital of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

within the gazetted localities of Lake Harris and Wilgena.DEH, 2004, pages 5-7 Lake Harris was named by the Government of South Australia after the surveyor,

Charles Hope Harris Charles Hope Harris FRAS (1846 – 26 June 1915), often referred to as C. Hope Harris, was a surveyor in South Australia, noted for laying out the town of Port Pirie. Lake Harris is named for him. History Harris was born in Clare, Suffolk, th ...

, who discovered and mapped it in 1874. Lake Harris is aligned in a north-easterly direction with an overall length of about and a maximum width of about .DEH, 2004, page 6 It extent includes “a number of Islands” described as being formed from “

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

deposits with extensive sand cover.” Its bed consists of “gypsiferous muds, clays and silts with some gypsum crystals” topped with a salt crust of thickness in the range of to , although parts of the lake have a surface with “no identifiable salt crust”. The lake bed contains a dune field of gypsum sands which vegetated with both “low samphire shrubland and tall shrubland with a chenopod shrub understorey.”DEH, 2004, page 13 Lake Harris along with the nearby lakes of

Everard Everard is a given name and surname which is the anglicised version of the old Germanic name Eberhard. Notable people with the name include: People First name *Everard Aloysius Lisle Phillipps (1835–1857), English East India officer awarded the V ...

and Gairdner, form the extent of the protected area known as the

Lake Gairdner National Park Lake Gairdner National Park is a protected area associated with Lake Gairdner in South Australia (Australia), 436 km northwest of Adelaide. It is located just south of the Trans-Australian Railway, Stuart Highway, and the Woomera Prohibite ...

Citations and references

;Citations ;References * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris Endorheic lakes of Australia Saline lakes of South Australia Lake Harris Gawler bioregion

See also

Citations and references