In 1916, geologist and palaeontologist Robert Etheridge described the area as having "shifting" sand hills and claypans.

He said that the claypans were:[4]"shallow depressions, more or less oval or circular in outline, large or small, distributed throughout the red soil country, treeless, often bearing a copious growth of grass, particularly cane grass and various kinds of salt-bush.

These pans are water-bearing in wet seasons, but otherwise dry, and in flood time many of them, no doubt, communicate with one another.

Of this nature appears to be the Cuttaburra branch of the Paroo River, an indescribable flat and weird surface of great extent."

In some New South Wales Aboriginal languages the word burra means hill ants.