Eldorado Valley , or El Dorado Valley , is a Great Basin valley in the Mojave Desert southeast of Las Vegas and southwest of Boulder City, Nevada . The valley is endorheic , containing the Eldorado Dry Lake. The Great Basin Divide , transects ridgelines and saddles, on the north, northeast, east, and south around the valley, as the valley sits on the east of the McCullough Range , a Great Basin massif , on the Great Basin Divide at its north terminus and its south terminus. Much of the valley is protected as part of Avi Kwa Ame National Monument .
21-511: The north end of the valley contains a large salt pan, or dry lake , Dry Lake or Eldorado Playa, while the southern two thirds drains northwards. U.S. Route 95 traverses eastern portions of the valley, and climbs steeply to meet U.S. Route 93 , connecting Boulder City to Henderson . The endorheic basin lies north of the Piute Wash Watershed , of the north-south Piute Valley . The Piute Wash drains south, then southeast to
42-493: A decline from 1992 to 2020. Bajada (geography) A bajada consists of a series of coalescing alluvial fans along a mountain front. These fan-shaped deposits form by the deposition of sediment within a stream onto flat land at the base of a mountain. The usage of the term in landscape description or geomorphology derives from the Spanish word bajada , generally having the sense of "descent" or "inclination". When
63-434: A dry lake bed is itself typically 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 . In southwest Idaho and parts of Nevada and Utah there are a number of rare species that occur nowhere else but in the inhospitable environment of seasonally flooded playas. A new species of giant fairy shrimp
84-524: A dry lake may be found in an area ringed by bajadas . Dry lakes are typically formed in semi- arid to arid regions of the world. The largest concentration of dry lakes (nearly 22,000) is in the southern High Plains of Texas and eastern New Mexico . Most dry lakes are small. However, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia , near Potosí , the largest salt flat in the world, comprises 4,085 square miles (10,582 square km). Many dry lakes contain shallow water during
105-614: A geological phenomenon known as " sailing stones " that leave linear "racetrack" imprints as they slowly move across the surface without human or animal intervention. These rocks have been recently filmed in motion by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego and are due to a perfect coincidence of events. First, the playa has to fill with water, which must be deep enough to form floating ice during winter, but still shallow enough that
126-614: A playa in the Black Rock Desert in western Nevada every year. Fangfang Yao et al (2023), at the University of Virginia reported that more than half of the world's large lakes are drying up. They assessed almost 2,000 large lakes using satellite measurements combined with climate and hydrological models. They found that unsustainable human use, changes in rainfall and run-off, sedimentation, and rising temperatures have driven lake levels down globally, with 53% of lakes showing
147-436: A salt flat is called a sabkha (also spelled sabkhah , subkha or sebkha ) or shott ( chott ). In Central Asia, a similar "cracked mud" salt flat is known as a takyr . In Iran salt flats are called kavir . A dry lake is formed when water from rain or other sources, like intersection with a water table, flows into a dry depression in the landscape, creating a pond or lake. If the total annual evaporation rate exceeds
168-411: A standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceed recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline compounds, it is known as an alkali flat. If covered with salt, it is known as a salt flat . If its basin is primarily salt , then a dry lake bed is called a salt pan , pan , or salt flat (the latter being a remnant of a salt lake ). Hardpan
189-423: A stream flows downhill, it picks up sediment along with other materials. As this stream emerges from a mountain front, the sediment carried begins to be deposited, such that coarser sediment is deposited closest to the base and the finer sediment grades outwards and deposits in a fan-shape away from the mountain face. The sediment is transported across a pediment into a closed basin where the bajadas grade back into
210-406: Is also home to the concentrated solar power plant, Nevada Solar One , as well as a growing number of photovoltaic power stations , including: This Clark County , Nevada state location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dry lake A dry lake bed , also known as a playa ( / ˈ p l aɪ - ə / ), is a basin or depression that formerly contained
231-556: Is the dry terminus of an internally drained basin in a dry climate, a designation typically used in the Great Basin of the western United States. Another term for dry lake bed is playa . The Spanish word playa ( pronounced [ˈplaʝa] ) literally means "beach". Dry lakes are known by this name in some parts of Mexico and the western United States. This term is used e.g. on the Llano Estacado and other parts of
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#1732775297646252-616: The Colorado River . The southern valley includes a habitat nature reserve for the Desert Bighorn Sheep , named the 'Highland Range Crucial Bighorn Habitat'. There are no public access routes into the habitat area, to protect the Bighorn. The northern valley contains Boulder City's "Eldorado Energy Zone" which is home to the 480 MW El Dorado natural gas power plant completed in the year 2000. Since 2007, it
273-835: The Southern High Plains and is commonly used to address paleolake sediments in the Sahara like Lake Ptolemy . In South America, the usual term for a dry lake bed is salar or salina , Spanish for salt pan . Pan is the term used in most of South Africa. These may include the small round highveld pans, typical of the Chrissiesmeer area, to the extensive pans of the Northern Cape province. Terms used in Australia include salt pans (where evaporite minerals are present) and clay pans . In Arabic,
294-407: The only water available to wildlife in the desert. Antelope and other wildlife gather there after rainstorms to drink. Threats to dry lakes include pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations such as cattle feedlots and dairies. Results are erosion; fertilizer, pesticide and sediment runoff from farms; and overgrazing . A non-native shrub that has been used for rangeland restoration in
315-463: The rainy season, especially during wet years. If the layer of water is thin and is moved around the dry lake bed by wind, an exceedingly hard and smooth surface may develop. Thicker layers of water may result in a "cracked-mud" surface and teepee structure desiccation features. If there is very little water, dunes can form. The Racetrack Playa , located in Death Valley, California , features
336-476: The rocks are exposed. When the temperature drops at night, this pond freezes into thin sheets of "windowpane" ice, which then must be thick enough to maintain strength, but thin enough to move freely. Finally, when the sun comes out, the ice melts and cracks into floating panels; these are blown across the playa by light winds, propelling the rocks in front of them. The stones only move once every two or three years and most tracks last for three or four years. While
357-977: The smoothness of the surface allows low-clearance vehicles to travel very fast without any risk of disruption by surface irregularities, and the path traveled has no obstacles to avoid. The dry lake beds at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and Black Rock Desert in Nevada have both been used for setting land speed records. Lake Eyre and Lake Gairdner in South Australia have also been used for various land speed record attempts. Dry lake beds that rarely fill with water are sometimes used as locations for air bases for similar reasons. Examples include Groom Lake at Area 51 in Nevada and Edwards Air Force Base (known initially as Muroc Dry Lake) in California. Brines from
378-515: The subsurface of dry lakes are often exploited for valuable minerals in solution. See, for example, Searles Dry Lake and Lithium resources . Under United States law, a "playa lake" may be considered isolated wetlands and may be eligible to enroll in the new wetlands component of the Conservation Reserve Program , enacted in the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107–171, Sec. 2101). The Burning Man yearly event takes place in
399-420: The total annual inflow, the depression will eventually become dry again, forming a dry lake. Salts originally dissolved in the water precipitate out and are left behind, gradually building up over time. A dry lake appears as a flat bed of clay, generally encrusted with precipitated salts. These evaporite minerals are a concentration of weathering products such as sodium carbonate, borax, and other salts. In deserts,
420-424: The west, Kochia prostrata , also poses a significant threat to playas and their associated rare species, as it capable of crowding out native vegetation and draining a playa's standing water because of its root growth. The extremely flat, smooth, and hard surfaces of dry lake beds make them ideal for fast motor vehicles and motorcycles. Large-sized dry lakes are excellent spots for pursuing land speed records , as
441-515: Was found in 2006. Although a large predatory species, it evaded detection because of the murkiness of the playa's water caused by winds and a fine clay load. This shrimp species is able to regenerate using tiny undetectable cysts that can remain in a dry lake bed for years until conditions are optimum for hatching. Lepidium davisii is another rare species, a perennial plant whose habitat is restricted to playas in southern Idaho and northern Nevada. Far from major rivers or lakes, playas are often
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