Karoo Supergroup of the country, and in the Lebombo mountains along the Mozambique border. Once the layer of hard lava was eroded away, the softer Karoo sediments over the rest of the basin eroded even faster. However, the dolerite sills resisted erosion, protecting the softer Beaufort and Ecca shales beneath them. This created numerous and widespread flat topped hills, known as Karoo Koppies ("koppie" being the Afrikaans term for hill), which are iconic of the Karoo, and, by extension, the South African landscape. The dykes, or vertical fissures which brought the lava to the surface stand out today as linear ridges extending
Gibson Desert severe drought which had dried up all of the springs and depleted the bush foods, a group of the Pintupi people who were living a traditional semi-nomadic desert-dwelling life, walked out of a remote wilderness in the central-eastern portion of the Gibson Desert (northeast of Warburton) and made contact for the first time with Australian society. They are believed to have been perhaps the last uncontacted tribe in Australia. On the eastern margin of the region, population centres (which include people of European descent) include Warburton, Mantamaru and Warakurna. Young Indigenous adults from the Gibson Desert region work in the