Gulf of Carpentaria, shallow rectangular inlet of the Arafura Sea (part of the Pacific Ocean), indenting the northern coast of Australia. Neglected for centuries, the gulf became internationally significant in the late 20th and early 21st centuries with the exploitation of its bauxite, manganese, and prawn (shrimp) resources. The gulf has an area of 120,000 square miles (310,000 square km) and a maximum depth of 230 feet (70 metres). It is a rare modern example of an epicontinental sea (a shallow sea on top of a continent), a feature much commoner at earlier times in the Earth’s geologic history.
The Gulf of Carpentaria is enclosed on the west by Arnhem Land and on the east by the Cape York Peninsula. The gulf floor is the continental shelf common to Australia and New Guinea. A ridge extends across Torres Strait, separating the floor of the gulf from the Coral Sea to the east. Another ridge extends northward from the Wessel Islands to separate the floor of the gulf from that of the Banda Basin of the Arafura Sea to the northwest. The gulf-floor gradient is very low; the great western plains of Queensland slope north or northwestward into the gulf in a very gentle fall of only one foot per mile. As the plains approach the sea, they merge into a belt of salt flats, which are widest just west of the Flinders River. More than 20 rivers drain into the Gulf of Carpentaria; they wind profusely in their lower courses and have extensive deltas.
The eastern side of the gulf was first explored by the Dutch between 1605 and 1628, and the southern and western coasts were discovered by the explorer Abel Tasman in 1644. The gulf was named for Pieter de Carpentier, governor-general (1623–27) of the Dutch East Indies.
On the shores of the gulf are layers of bauxite up to 33 feet (10 metres) thick. Overlying these deposits on Wellesley and Sir Edward Pellew islands are beds of sandstone that may represent a higher stand of sea level than that of today. Huge manganese deposits in the west of the gulf appear to have been formed along an irregular shoreline of an ancestral gulf.
The salt pans of the southeastern gulf shores are the result of complexly interacting factors. In summer (November to April), with very flat land drainage, monsoonal rain, magnified tides, and wind piling up the sea on shore, the salt pan area is submerged by the sea, and behind it the land area is submerged by the drainage water backing up the blocked estuaries. The junction of saltwater and freshwater floods is marked by the transition from bare salt pan to vegetated plains.
Prawn fishing developed rapidly in the gulf from the late 1960s. The town of Karumba, located at the southeastern end of the gulf, is a centre of the prawn fishing industry. Banana prawns are the major catch. Huge manganese deposits are being mined on Groote Eylandt and equally vast bauxite deposits are being exploited at Weipa, on the Cape York Peninsula, and at Gove Peninsula, in Arnhem Land.
As a result of these economic developments, settlement on the shores and islands of the gulf increased from a mere handful to several thousand people, and transport and communication links with the rest of Australia and the world have improved.