FROME, LAKE

in northeastern South Australia, large, shallow depression 60 mi (100 km) long by 30 mi wide, intermittently filled with water, 280 mi northeast of Adelaide. It is the southernmost of an arc of such salt lakes northeast of the Flinders Range, including Lakes Gregory, Blanche, and Callabonna, all sharing a common origin in a larger ancestral Lake Eyre (to the northwest). Unless it receives water from fluctuating heavy rains in the northern Flinders or an overflow from Lake Callabonna, Frome is a dry salt pan (playa). Sighted in 1840 by Edward J. Eyre, who was seeking new grazing lands, it was considered an extension of Lake Torrens (80 mi west) until 1858. It is named after E.C. Frome, surveyor general of South Australia in the 1840s.