A dry lake is an ephemeral lakebed, or a remnant of an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts. Alternative names for the dry lake include alkali flat and playa.
A playa lake may cover a wide area, but it is never deep. Most water in it evaporates. leaving a layer of salt on the surface. These salt covered stretches are called saltpans.
If its basin is primarily salt then the dry lake is called a salt pans, pan, hardpan, or salt flat (the latter is a remnant of a salt lake). Other dry lake types include the sabkha and the mudflat.
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Famous quotes containing the words dry and/or lake:
“behind dry lips
a loaded gun.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Will lovely, lively, virginal today
Shatter for us with a wings drunken blow
This hard, forgotten lake haunted in snow
By the sheer ice of flocks not flown away!”
—Stéphane Mallarmé (18421898)