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Playa
GEOLOGY
WRITTEN BY:

Victor R. Baker
Alternative Titles: clay pan, dry lake, flat, kavir, pan, salada, salar, salt pan, takyr, tinaja, vlei

laya, ( Spanish: shore or beach) , also called pan, flat, or dry lake, at-bottom depression found in interior desert basins and

adjacent to coasts within arid and semiarid regions, periodically covered by water that slowly ltrates into the ground water
system or evaporates into the atmosphere, causing the deposition of salt, sand, and mud along the bottom and around the
edges of the depression.

Playas are among the attest known landforms. Their slopes are generally less than 0.2 metre per kilometre. When lled with only a
few centimetres of water, many kilometres of surface may be inundated. It is the process of inundation that develops and maintains
the near-perfect atness so characteristic of these arid-region landforms.
Playas occupy the at central basins of desert plains. They require interior drainage to a zone where evaporation greatly exceeds
inow. When ooded, a playa lake forms where ne-grained sediment and salts concentrate. Terminology is quite confused for playas
because of many local names. A saline playa may be called a salt at, salt marsh, salada, salar, salt pan, alkali at, or salina. A salt-free
playa may be termed a clay pan, hardpan, dry lake bed, or alkali at. In Australia and South Africa small playas are generally referred
to as pans. The low-relief plains of these lands contrast with the mountainous deserts of North America, resulting in numerous small
pans instead of immense playas. The terms takyr, sabkha, and kavir are applied in Central Asia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, respectively.
Saline ats are specialized forms located adjacent to large bodies of water, as, for example, along coasts, lakeshores, and deltas. They
ood during storms, either with surface runoff or with surges from the nearby body of water. The saline crusts of saline ats are quite
similar to those that develop in playas.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Enclosed basins of salt and clay accumulation may originate from numerous causes.
Tectonic causes include faulting, as in the East African Rift Valley and Death Valley, and
warping, as in Lake Eyre in Australia, Lake Chad in central Africa, and Sha al-Jard ( Chott Djerid) in Tunisia. Wind deation can
produce shallow basins with downwind dunes, as in southeastern Australia. Even very large basins, such as the Qattara Depression of
Egypt, have been ascribed to deation. Local cataclysmic disruptions of drainage (e.g., volcanism, landslides, and meteorite impacts)
may produce playas in desert regions.
Modern playa surfaces are not passive receptors of sediment as they were once believed to be. They serve as important sources of
dust and salts, which are blown to the surrounding uplands. Complex assemblages of minerals and sediments occur on the playa
surfaces. These directly reect their environment of deposition and may be used to interpret ancient environmental conditions.
Two broad classes of playas may be dened on the basis of past histories. One type develops from the desiccation of a former lake.
Sediments in such a playa are primarily lacustrine, rather than derived from modern depositional processes. The second type of playa
has no paleolacustrine heritage. Small salt pans in South Africa, called vokils, are of this type.
The supply of material, basin depth, and duration of accumulation all contribute to variations in the thickness of playa deposits. Very
thick playa sequences may have alternating layers of lacustrine clays and salt beds. The former generally reect periods of high
oodwater runoff into the closed basins, perhaps induced by higher rainfall (so-called pluvial periods). Saline sediments or pure
evaporite beds reect arid climatic phases. The precise climatic interpretation of paleolacustrine playa sequences, however, can be
problematic.
Role of flooding and groundwater
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Playas affected by occasional surface oods are usually dry. Their surfaces consist of silt and clay deposited by the oodwaters that
enter closed basins during the occasional ow events. Salts develop as ponded oodwater in the centre of such a basin gradually
evaporates. Water also can be supplied to closed basins by groundwater ow. In basins dominated by groundwater inputs, sediment
inuxes are minimized, and saline crusts dominate. Moist areas may persist as groundwater ows to the lowest portion of playas. Very
large playas may exhibit dry, sediment-dominated sections and moist, salt-dominated sections.
Saline minerals

The salt deposits of a salt pan are zoned like bathtub rings, with less-soluble sulfates and
carbonates at the outer margin and highly soluble sodium chloride (table salt) at the
centre. The crystallization of these salts can be compared with the evaporation of brine in a dish. The rst precipitates from the
evaporating brine are calcium carbonate ( CaCO3 ) and magnesium carbonate (MgCO3 ). These form the outer bathtub ring. The next
ring consists of sulfates of calcium and sodium ( CaSO4 and Na2 SO4 , respectively). If sufcient calcium is present, gypsum
( CaSO 2H O) will form. If less calcium is present, thenardite (Na SO ) and sodium carbonate (Na CO ) may be deposited. The last
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remaining brines of exceptionally high salinity precipitate highly soluble chlorides of sodium, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.
Another kind of zoning occurs in saline playas with respect to the hydration of different minerals. Dehydrated minerals, such as
anhydrite ( CaSO4 ), occur on surface areas protected against ooding and in wet saline areas.
Some playas also contain exotic minerals. The Death Valley playa is famous for borate minerals, including borax (Na2 B4 O7 10H2 O)
and Meyerhofferite ( Ca2 B6 O11 7H2 O).
Surface relief and structures

Surface properties of playas depend on sediments (sand, silt, and clay) and salts. Near-surface groundwater may give rise to evaporite
crusts formed by rigorous evaporative concentration. Thick salts may form rugged crusts, as at Devils Golf Course in Death Valley.
Regular ooding of evaporative layers may form a very smooth surface, as at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. For thick, soluble crusts,
dissolution may occur during uctuations of a high water table. Solution cavities in the crust can produce a salt karst topography.
The muds deposited on playas are subject to drying and shrinking. The amount of volume change varies with the clay minerals
present. Smectite clays experience the greatest shrinkage on drying. The presence of salts enhances the effect, since deposition and
crystallization of salts in the cracks creates a polygonal network of salt wedges.
Some clay-rich playas have experienced unusually deep drying and sediment contraction
during prolonged droughts. Giant desiccation polygons formed under these conditions are
as large as 90 metres across. Individual cracks more than one metre wide and 15 metres deep have been observed.
GEOMORPHIC EVOLUTION

Impact of climatic change

Playas are exceptionally sensitive to environmental change. They have been most profoundly inuenced by changes in hydrologic
regimen induced by the climatic variations of the Quaternary Period (i.e., the past 2.6 million years). All have experienced episodes of
expanded lake levels in the past. Such predecessors are often called pluvial lakes, thereby implying periods of increased rainfall. It is
also possible, however, that lakes could have expanded because of other factors, including increased groundwater inow and/or
decreased evaporation/transpiration.
Paleolake chronologies

Modern geochronologic techniques, such as radiocarbon dating, permit the comparison of uctuations in the paleolakes that were
predecessors to many modern playas. In northern Africa lakes were at a moderately high level from 30,000 to 22,000 years ago.
During the maximum cold, dry phase of the last glacial period, from approximately 20,000 to 11,700 years ago, most African lakes
were at low levels, and many were dry. From 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, lakes rose to maximum high levels. Lake Chad expanded to
the size of the modern Caspian Sea. Small volume lakes, however, are more sensitive to climatic change, recording higher frequency
oscillations in the hydrologic balance. Since about 4,000 years ago, the north African lakes have fallen to the range of their modern
lows.
Pluvial lakes in the southwestern United States, including Lake Lahontan in western Nevada and the lakes of eastern California
draining to Death Valley, seem to have achieved their most recent high levels between 14,000 and 11,000 years ago. The period from
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30,000 to 24,000 years ago was marked by low lake levels. Another low was reached about 7,000 years ago. Many of the lakes of the
southwestern United States, however, seem to have been not quite in phase with one another.
Effects of wind action

Playas and saline ats are particularly susceptible to wind action. Clays and salts form crusts that curl and ake upon drying. The
akes and curls are readily deated, and these wind-eroded sediments are then deposited leeward of the playas and saline ats from
which they were removed. This process is increasingly recognized as a source of dust hazard, as studies around Owens Lake,
California, and in western China have shown.
In Australia many playas have large transverse crescentic foredunes on their leeward side.
Because of their silt and clay composition, these features are sometimes called clay dunes.
In Australia they are known as lunettes. James M. Bowler, an Australian Quaternary stratigrapher, produced a precise chronology of
playa development and associated eolian activity in the desert of western New South Wales, Australia. There, numerous small lakes
reached their maximum extent 32,000 years ago, approximately coincident with the age of the rst human remains in Australia.
From about 26,000 years ago, the lakes fell to low levels. Playas formed roughly 16,000 years ago at a time when eolian activity
peaked. High lakes again occurred about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, but playas were reestablished after that.
The present association of playas, lunettes, and linear dunes in the Australian deserts may imply a causative association. C.R. Twidale
proposed that the linear dunes developed as lee-side accumulations of sand trapped by the growth of lunettes. Climatic change is
critical to the association.

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10 REFERENCES FOUND IN BRITANNICA ARTICLES
Assorted References

role in evaporite deposition (in sedimentary rock: Nonmarine environment)

temporary bodies of water (in inland water ecosystem: Temporary bodies of standing fresh water)

feature of

Andes Mountains (in Andes Mountains: Physiography of the Central Andes)

Kalahari Basin (in Kalahari Desert: Physiography and geology)

Karakum Desert (in Karakum Desert: Physiography)

Makgadikgadi region (in Makgadikgadi)

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Searles Lake (in Searles Lake)

velds (in veld: Physiography)

physiography of

Australia (in Australia: The Interior Lowlands)

Thar Desert (in Thar Desert: Land)

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