Cooper Creek

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Cooper Creek ([28°23′S 137°41′E]) is one of the most famous and yet least visited rivers in Australia. It is also known as Cooper's Creek or the Barcoo River.

It rises west of the Great Dividing Range on low ground as two central Queensland rivers, the Thomson between Longreach and Charters Towers, and the Barcoo in the area around Barcaldine, about 500 kilometres inland from Rockhampton.

Cooper Creek spreads out into a vast area of meandering ephemeral channels, making its way roughly south into the far south-west corner of Queensland before turning due west into South Australia towards Lake Eyre. In most years, it is absorbed into the earth, goes to fill channels and the many permanent waterholes, or simply evaporates without reaching Lake Eyre. In very wet years, however, it manages to flood the entire Channel Country and reaches the lake. Studies have clearly shown that, although with a mean annual flow of around 2.3km³ (though ranging at Barcoo from an estimated 0.02km³ in 1902 to an estimated 12km³ in 1950) the Cooper carries twice and much runoff as the Diamantina and three times as much as the Georgina, over the past ten thousand years it has reached Lake Eyre much less frequently than those rivers. This is due to the fact that much more water is absorbed along its course than with the Diamantine or Georgina, but could possibly be also because centennial or multicentennial wet and dry cycles in those basins causing them to regularly reach the lake during wet periods (there is some evidence from terraces around Lake Eyre than this occurred during the Medieval Warm Period).

Most of the basin of the Cooper is used for sheep and cattle grazing on natural grasslands: although the extreme east of the basin is relatively wet on paper with averages of over 500mm (20 inches) at Blackall, the rainfall is much too erratic for cropping. The soils are mainly Vertisols or Vertic Torrifluvents are are quite fertile, though generally heavy in texture with a strong tendency to crack due to the erratic rainfall.

It was along Cooper Creek that the explorers Burke and Wills met their deaths.

References

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