Created over 80 million years, the Painted Desert in South Australia, distinct from Painted Desert in Arizona, is just as spectacular with its multi-hued terrain. The effects of erosion on the residue from an ancient inland sea and the leaching of minerals in the soil, together lend the myriad colours one sees today. Located towards the north-east of Coober Pedy, Painted Desert is just a few miles away from Arkaringa and is notable also for its distinctive mesas, mountains and geological formations. Not far from here on the way to Oodnadatta you would also see large areas of ground covered with mica. The entire region is desolate and made up of soft, fragile "rock".
Famous quotes containing the words painted and/or desert:
“When he painted a road, the roadmakers were there in his imagination. When he painted the turned earth of a ploughed field, the gesture of the blade turning the earth was included in his own act. Wherever he looked he saw the labour of existence; and this labour, recognized as such, was what constituted reality for him.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“This ripe rebuke, this burgeoning affluence
Mocks me and mocks the desert of my bed.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)