Pindan is a name given to the red-soil country of the south-western Kimberley region of Western Australia.

 Pindan is a name given to the red-soil country of the south-western Kimberley region of Western Australia. The term comes from a local language and applies both to the soil and to the vegetation community associated with it.^[1]

History

The word “pindan” was first mentioned in print in 1883 by Mr Edward Townley Hardman (1845-1887) in a preliminary appendix to John Forrest’s report on the Kimberley. He stated:

“The only metalliferous deposits as yet observed by me are pindan ironstone, a poor hematite, but in large quantity; and in the Fitzroy gravels, quantities of minute dark heavy grains, which have all the appearance of stream tin. These await further chemical examination, In these gravels, opal, cats-eye, garnet, and amethyst occur, all of inferior quality so far as at present observed.^[2]

The 1891 report on the General Description and Physical Geography of the Kimberley District by Government Geologist Harry Page Woodward described the Pliocene geological formation as pindan sands and gravel, often cemented by oxide of iron:

"These sandy soils are largely developed on either side of the Fitzroy River, stretching far away to the Southward, where they form Warburton’s Great Sandy Desert; they are, as a rule, waterless; but, owing to the large rainfall, produce a large quantity of vegetation. On the Ord River there are some small stretches of this country, but never of any great extent."^[3]

Pindan country

Dampierland (shown in red), the region to which pindan is largely restricted