Playa
Playa, also known as
alkali flat or
sabkha, is a
dry lakebed, generally the shore of, or remnant of, an
endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained
sediments infused with
alkali salts. Their surface is generally very dry, hard and smooth in the summer months, but wet and very soft in the winter months. While the playa itself will be devoid of vegetation, they are commonly ringed by
shadscale,
saltbrush and other salt-tolerant plants that provide critical winter fodder for
livestock and other
herbivores.
Many playas contain shallow lakes in the winter, especially during wet years. If the layer of water is thin and is moved around the playa by the wind, an exceedingly hard and smooth surface can develop. Thicker layers of water can result in a "cracked-mud" surface. Too little water can result in dune formation.
|
A closeup photograph of salt growths on the crust of a playa lake |
The extremely flat, smooth, and hard surfaces of playas make them ideal surfaces for driving
motor vehicles on. Large-sized playas are further excellent spots for pursuing
land speed records, as the smoothness of the surface allows low-clearance vehicles to travel very fast without risk of disruption by surface irregularities, and the course of travel does not need to be too precise to avoid obstacles. The playas at
Bonneville Salt Flats in
Utah and
Black Rock Desert in
Nevada have both been used for setting land speed records. The latter is also the site of the annual
Burning Man art and music festival.
Salar de Uyuni in
Bolivia, near
PotosÃ, is the largest salt flat in the world (4,085 square miles (10,582 square km), about 25 times bigger than the Bonneville Salt Flats; however you can not see the Earth's curvature at the Bolivia flats).
The
Spanish word
playa () literally means "
beach". Alkali flats are known by this name in some parts of
Mexico and the western
United States (
pronounced ). On the
Llano Estacado and other parts of the Southern
High Plains,
playa refers to a
playa lake, a smaller seasonal depression.
In
Arabic, an alkali flat is called a
sabkha (also spelled
sabkhah, sometimes
sebkha) or
shott.
*
Salt lake*
Salt pan
