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The Western Plateau is Australia's largest drainage division and is composed predominantly of the remains of the ancient rock shield of Gondwanaland. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. A shield is generally a large area of exposed Precambrian Crystalline igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form tectonically Gondwana (ɡɒnˈdwɑːnə originally Gondwanaland) was a southern Supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Ma ago It incorporates two thirds of the continent; 2,700,000 square kilometres of arid land including large parts of Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory. Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the center of the mainland continent as well as the central northern regions For comparison, it is roughly four times the size of Texas, or the same size as the whole of continental Europe from Poland west to Portugal. Texas ( is a state geographically located in the South Central United States and is also known as the Lone Star State.

Rain seldom falls in this region and aside from a handful of permanent waterholes, surface water is absent at all times except after heavy rain. Most of the territory is flat sandy or stony desert with a sparse covering of scrub or tussock grasses. Average rainfall varies from one area to another and is quoted at 100 to 350 mm per year (between 4 and 14 inches) but is highly unpredictable.

There are no permanent watercourses. The general trend is for run-off to flow inland, but there is insufficient rainfall to produce any marked drainage pattern.

See also

For the Fly Genus, see Pilbara (fly. The Pilbara is a The Top End is the second northernmost point on the continent of Australia, behind the Cape York Peninsula. The Kimberley is one of the nine Regions of Western Australia. The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies The north-east coast drainage division is the area of Queensland between the Great Dividing Range and the ocean. The south-east coast drainage division is the very long narrow area of southern Australia between the Great Dividing Range and the sea The Murray-Darling Basin is 3375km long drains one-seventh of the Australian land mass and is currently by far the most significant agricultural area in Australia The South Australian gulf drainage division is the area surrounding the Gulf Saint Vincent and Spencer Gulf and a sliver of country to the immediate north The Lake Eyre Basin is a Drainage basin that covers one-sixth of all Australia. Australian Shield, also called the Western Australian Shield or Western Plateau, occupies more than half of the continent of Australia. The Pilbara craton (the Pilbara province in northwest Western Australia) along with the Kaapvaal craton (the Kaapvaal province of South Africa The Yilgarn Craton is a large Craton which constitutes the bulk of the Western Australian land mass
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