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61-815: Owens Lake is a dry lake in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, California . It is about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Lone Pine . Unlike most dry lakes in the Basin and Range Province that have been dry for thousands of years, Owens held significant water until 1913, when much of the Owens River was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct , causing Owens Lake to desiccate by 1926. In 2006, 5% of

122-644: A conventional lake. On April 19, 2008, the Eastern Sierra Audubon Society, Audubon California, and the Owens Valley Committee held the first lake-wide survey of the bird populations of Owens Lake. Volunteers recorded a total of 112 avian species and 45,650 individual birds — the highest total number of birds ever officially recorded at Owens Lake. Volunteers identified 15 species of waterfowl (ducks and geese) and 22 species of shorebirds. The highest totals for individuals of

183-501: A decline from 1992 to 2020. Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite , Al 2 Si 2 O 5 ( OH ) 4 ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide . Clays develop plasticity when wet but can be hardened through firing . Clay

244-591: A depth of 200 feet (61 m). The increased inflow from the Owens River, from melting glaciers of the post- Ice Age Sierra Nevada, caused Owens Lake to overflow south through Rose Valley into another now-dry lake bed named China Lake in the Indian Wells Valley , near Ridgecrest and a town that sports its name . On November 5, 1913, William Mulholland finished the Los Angeles aqueduct. Water

305-673: 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 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

366-579: A dust control measure. The vegetation consists of saltgrass , which is a native perennial grass highly tolerant of the salt and boron levels in the lake sediments. Gravel covers are also used. This once-blue saline lake was an important feeding and resting stop for millions of waterfowl each year. During a visit to Owens Lake in 1917 Joseph Grinnell from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley reported "Great numbers of water birds are in sight along

427-587: 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, 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 ,

488-575: A gel of orthosilicic acid ).) The clay minerals formed depend on the composition of the source rock and the climate. Acid weathering of feldspar -rich rock, such as granite , in warm climates tends to produce kaolin. Weathering of the same kind of rock under alkaline conditions produces illite . Smectite forms by weathering of igneous rock under alkaline conditions, while gibbsite forms by intense weathering of other clay minerals. There are two types of clay deposits: primary and secondary. Primary clays form as residual deposits in soil and remain at

549-836: A great capacity to take up water, and they increase greatly in volume when they do so. When dried, they shrink back to their original volume. This produces distinctive textures, such as mudcracks or "popcorn" texture, in clay deposits. Soils containing swelling clay minerals (such as bentonite ) pose a considerable challenge for civil engineering, because swelling clay can break foundations of buildings and ruin road beds. Clay minerals most commonly form by prolonged chemical weathering of silicate-bearing rocks. They can also form locally from hydrothermal activity. Chemical weathering takes place largely by acid hydrolysis due to low concentrations of carbonic acid , dissolved in rainwater or released by plant roots. The acid breaks bonds between aluminium and oxygen, releasing other metal ions and silica (as

610-402: A major challenge in civil engineering . The defining mechanical property of clay is its plasticity when wet and its ability to harden when dried or fired. Clays show a broad range of water content within which they are highly plastic, from a minimum water content (called the plastic limit ) where the clay is just moist enough to mould, to a maximum water content (called the liquid limit) where

671-402: 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 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

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732-400: 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 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,

793-614: 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

854-473: A species included 13,873 California gulls (an inland nester at Mono Lake and elsewhere); 9,218 American avocets ; 1,767 eared grebes ; 13,826 peeps or small sandpipers such as dunlin , western and least sandpipers ; and 2,882 individual ducks. In 2004, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) acquired a 218-acre (88 ha) parcel at the foot of Owens Lake. Designated

915-408: A variety of minerals including halite , burkeite, mirabilite , thenardite , and trona . In wet years, these minerals form a chemical soup in the form of a small brine pond within the dry lake. When conditions are right, bright pink halophilic (salt-loving) archaea spread across the salty lake bed. Also, on especially hot summer days when ground temperatures exceed 150° F (66 °C), water

976-452: Is Armenian bole , which is used to soothe an upset stomach. Some animals such as parrots and pigs ingest clay for similar reasons. Kaolin clay and attapulgite have been used as anti-diarrheal medicines. Clay as the defining ingredient of loam is one of the oldest building materials on Earth , among other ancient, naturally occurring geologic materials such as stone and organic materials like wood. Between one-half and two-thirds of

1037-620: Is a unique type of marine clay indigenous to the glaciated terrains of Norway , North America , Northern Ireland , and Sweden . It is a highly sensitive clay, prone to liquefaction , and has been involved in several deadly landslides . Modelling clay is used in art and handicraft for sculpting . Clays are used for making pottery , both utilitarian and decorative, and construction products, such as bricks, walls, and floor tiles. Different types of clay, when used with different minerals and firing conditions, are used to produce earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Prehistoric humans discovered

1098-459: Is clay with visible annual layers that are formed by seasonal deposition of those layers and are marked by differences in erosion and organic content. This type of deposit is common in former glacial lakes . When fine sediments are delivered into the calm waters of these glacial lake basins away from the shoreline, they settle to the lake bed. The resulting seasonal layering is preserved in an even distribution of clay sediment banding. Quick clay

1159-530: Is driven out of the hydrates on the lake bed creating a muddy brine. More commonly, periodic winds stir up noxious alkali dust storms that carry away as much as four million tons (3.6 million metric tons) of dust from the lake bed each year, causing respiratory problems in nearby residents. The dust includes carcinogens, such as cadmium , nickel and arsenic . The LADWP and the California State Lands Commission own most of

1220-428: 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 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

1281-674: Is important to soil fertility. Clay is a common component of sedimentary rock . Shale is formed largely from clay and is the most common of sedimentary rocks. However, most clay deposits are impure. Many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay. Clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size and mineralogy. Silts , which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. There is, however, some overlap in particle size and other physical properties. The distinction between silt and clay varies by discipline. Geologists and soil scientists usually consider

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1342-546: 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 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

1403-429: Is the longest-known ceramic material. Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery . Some of the earliest pottery shards have been dated to around 14,000 BCE, and clay tablets were the first known writing medium. Clay is used in many modern industrial processes, such as paper making, cement production, and chemical filtering . Between one-half and two-thirds of

1464-512: Is used in many industrial processes, such as paper making, cement production, and chemical filtering . Bentonite clay is widely used as a mold binder in the manufacture of sand castings . Clay is a common filler used in polymer nanocomposites . It can reduce the cost of the composite, as well as impart modified behavior: increased stiffness , decreased permeability , decreased electrical conductivity , etc. Traditional uses of clay as medicine go back to prehistoric times. An example

1525-621: Is very little water, dunes can form. The Racetrack Playa , located in Death Valley, California , features 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

1586-613: 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, 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

1647-616: The Inyo Mountains on the former north shore, replaced Swansea as the shipping port for the mines after the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake . In the 1870s it had a population of 5,000 people as the center of trade for the Cerro Gordo mines. The Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns, traditional stone masonry 'beehive' charcoal kilns , were built to transform wood from trees in Cottonwood Canyon above the lake into charcoal , to feed

1708-591: The Cartago Wildlife Area in 2007, it is one of the few remaining spring and wetland areas on the shore of Owens Lake. The site is open year-round for viewing numerous bird species attracted to the ponds and wetlands as well as the ruins of a historic soda ash plant from the World War I era and the 1920s. The town of Cartago , below the Sierra Nevada near present-day Olancha, California ,

1769-479: The Cerro Gordo mines' silver and lead smelters across the lake at Swansea. The ruins are located on the southern side of the lake bed near Cartago. They were similar to the nearby Panamint Charcoal Kilns near Death Valley . The kilns are identified as California Historical Landmark #537. In 1879 silver mining ended, but Keeler was saved when the Carson and Colorado Railroad built narrow-gauge rail tracks to

1830-496: The Cerro Gordo mines, which at their height were so productive that the bars of the refined metals waited in large stacks before twenty-mule team teamsters could haul it to Los Angeles. The trying three-week (one way) journey improved after the formation of the Cerro Gordo Freighting Company, run by ancestors of regional historian Remi Nadeau who has written of this period. The town of Keeler, below

1891-523: The Owens Lake bed, though a few small parcels along the historic western shoreline are privately owned. CDFW is using mitigation funds from CalTrans to enhance habitat. As part of an air quality mitigation settlement, LADWP is shallow flooding 27 square miles (69.9 km) of the salt pan to try to help minimize alkali dust storms and further adverse health effects. There are also about 3.5 square miles (9.1 km) of managed vegetation being used as

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1952-411: The city of Los Angeles and built a new plant with a $ 15,000 settlement. A fire destroyed this plant shortly after it was built, but the company rebuilt it on the dry lake bed in the 1920s. During the unusually wet winter of 1937, LADWP diverted water from the aqueduct into the lake bed, flooding the soda plant. Because of this, the courts ordered the city to pay $ 154,000. After an unsuccessful appeal to

2013-415: The cohesion that makes it plastic. In kaolinite clay, the bonding between plates is provided by a film of water molecules that hydrogen bond the plates together. The bonds are weak enough to allow the plates to slip past each other when the clay is being moulded, but strong enough to hold the plates in place and allow the moulded clay to retain its shape after it is moulded. When the clay is dried, most of

2074-516: The first known writing medium. Clay was chosen due to the local material being easy to work with and widely available. Scribes wrote on the tablets by inscribing them with a script known as cuneiform , using a blunt reed called a stylus , which effectively produced the wedge shaped markings of their writing. After being written on, clay tablets could be reworked into fresh tablets and reused if needed, or fired to make them permanent records. Purpose-made clay balls were used as sling ammunition . Clay

2135-493: The former Owens Lake ecosystem alive. Snowy plovers nest at Owens along with several thousand snow geese and ducks . As a result of dust mitigation efforts, shallow flooding of the lake bed has created habitats approximately 3 feet (0.9 m) deep. This water, although seasonally applied, is helping to buoy the lake's ecosystem causing hope in conservationists that an expanded shallow flooding program could do even more. There are no plans to restore Owens to anything resembling

2196-524: 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 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

2257-416: The lake flooded for the first time in over 100 years due to the numerous storms that struck California during the first three months of 2023 , increasing in volume from 5,000 acre-feet to about 50,000 acre-feet. Environmental groups are currently working with Indigenous leaders in hopes of keeping more water in the lake. The lake is a large salt flat whose surface is made of a mixture of clay , sand , and

2318-598: The lake include: Numerous Western films have been shot by Owens Lake, including Westward Ho (1935), Maverick (1994), Riders of the Dawn (1937), Across the Plains (1939), Stage to Tucson (1951), From Hell to Texas (1958) and Nevada Smith (1966). Other films that had scenes shot at Owens Lake or the nearby Alabama Hills where Owens Lake is visible includes Top Gun (1986), and Tremors (1990). Notes Bibliography Dry lake If its basin

2379-600: The lake shore--avocets, phalaropes, ducks. Large flocks of shorebirds in flight over the water in the distance, wheeling about show in mass, now silvery now dark, against the gray-blue of the water. There must be literally thousands of birds within sight of this one spot". Owens Lake is recognized as an Important Bird Area in California by the National Audubon Society . At the shore, a chain of wetlands , fed by springs and artesian wells , keep part of

2440-422: The largest salt flat in the world, comprises 4,085 square miles (10,582 square km). Many dry lakes contain shallow water during 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

2501-480: The last few hundred years the lake had an average depth of 23 to 50 feet (7.0 to 15.2 m), and sometimes overflowed to the south, after which the water would flow into the Mojave Desert . In 1905, the lake's water was thought to be "excessively saline." It is thought that in the late Pleistocene about 11–12,000 years ago Owens Lake was even larger, covering nearly 200 square miles (520 km) and reaching

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2562-404: The material. The clay mineral kaolinite is transformed into a non-clay material, metakaolin , which remains rigid and hard if moistened again. Further firing through the stoneware and porcelain stages further recrystallizes the metakaolin into yet stronger minerals such as mullite . The tiny size and plate form of clay particles gives clay minerals a high surface area. In some clay minerals,

2623-724: The moulded clay is just dry enough to hold its shape. The plastic limit of kaolinite clay ranges from about 36% to 40% and its liquid limit ranges from about 58% to 72%. High-quality clay is also tough, as measured by the amount of mechanical work required to roll a sample of clay flat. Its toughness reflects a high degree of internal cohesion. Clay has a high content of clay minerals that give it its plasticity. Clay minerals are hydrous aluminium phyllosilicate minerals , composed of aluminium and silicon ions bonded into tiny, thin plates by interconnecting oxygen and hydroxide ions. These plates are tough but flexible, and in moist clay, they adhere to each other. The resulting aggregates give clay

2684-467: The plates carry a negative electrical charge that is balanced by a surrounding layer of positive ions ( cations ), such as sodium, potassium, or calcium. If the clay is mixed with a solution containing other cations, these can swap places with the cations in the layer around the clay particles, which gives clays a high capacity for ion exchange . The chemistry of clay minerals, including their capacity to retain nutrient cations such as potassium and ammonium,

2745-696: The separation to occur at a particle size of 2 μm (clays being finer than silts), sedimentologists often use 4–5 μm, and colloid chemists use 1 μm. Clay-size particles and clay minerals are not the same, despite a degree of overlap in their respective definitions. Geotechnical engineers distinguish between silts and clays based on the plasticity properties of the soil, as measured by the soils' Atterberg limits . ISO 14688 grades clay particles as being smaller than 2 μm and silt particles as being larger. Mixtures of sand , silt and less than 40% clay are called loam . Some clay minerals (such as smectite ) are described as swelling clay minerals, because they have

2806-841: The site of formation. Secondary clays are clays that have been transported from their original location by water erosion and deposited in a new sedimentary deposit. Secondary clay deposits are typically associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lakes and marine basins. The main groups of clays include kaolinite , montmorillonite - smectite , and illite . Chlorite , vermiculite , talc , and pyrophyllite are sometimes also classified as clay minerals. There are approximately 30 different types of "pure" clays in these categories, but most "natural" clay deposits are mixtures of these different types, along with other weathered minerals. Clay minerals in clays are most easily identified using X-ray diffraction rather than chemical or physical tests. Varve (or varved clay )

2867-918: 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

2928-656: The state supreme court in 1941, LADWP built the Long Valley Dam , which impounded Lake Crowley for flood control . A 2004 court order required the LADWP to reestablish a small flow from the river into the lake. In winter 2006, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power restored 5% of the pre-aqueduct flow to the river by court order, allowing the Owens River Gorge , the river bed in

2989-515: 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

3050-508: The town. It then became a soda, salt , and marble shipping center until 1960. The rail line had been sold to Southern Pacific Railroad in 1900. Keeler's current population is around 50 people and continues in decline. In the 20th century the Clark Chemical Company operated on the northwestern shore at Bartlett, with evaporation ponds for lake brine and a plant to extract its chemicals. Mineral extraction plants around

3111-548: The useful properties of clay. Some of the earliest pottery shards recovered are from central Honshu , Japan . They are associated with the Jōmon culture, and recovered deposits have been dated to around 14,000 BCE. Cooking pots, art objects, dishware, smoking pipes , and even musical instruments such as the ocarina can all be shaped from clay before being fired. Ancient peoples in Mesopotamia adopted clay tablets as

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3172-514: The valley, and Owens Lake to contain a small amount of water. The lake was the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that occurred on June 24, 2020. In 2022, the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District successfully sued LADWP for the department's refusal to implement "low-impact" pollution controls at Owens Lake in an area with sensitive Native American cultural resources. In 2023,

3233-583: The water flow was restored. As of 2013, it is the largest single source of dust pollution in the United States. Owens Lake was given its present name by the explorer John C. Frémont , in honor of one of his guides, Richard Owens . The lake is called Patsiata by the Mono people . Before the diversion of the Owens River, Owens Lake was up to 12 miles (19 km) long and 8 miles (13 km) wide, covering an area of up to 108 square miles (280 km). In

3294-426: The water molecules are removed, and the plates hydrogen bond directly to each other, so that the dried clay is rigid but still fragile. If the clay is moistened again, it will once more become plastic. When the clay is fired to the earthenware stage, a dehydration reaction removes additional water from the clay, causing clay plates to irreversibly adhere to each other via stronger covalent bonding , which strengthens

3355-424: 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

3416-611: The western United States. This term is used e.g. on the Llano Estacado and other parts of 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

3477-735: The world's population live or work in buildings made with clay, often baked into brick, as an essential part of its load-bearing structure. Clay is a very common substance. Shale , formed largely from clay, is the most common sedimentary rock. Although many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay, clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size and mineralogy. Silts , which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. Mixtures of sand , silt and less than 40% clay are called loam . Soils high in swelling clays ( expansive clay ), which are clay minerals that readily expand in volume when they absorb water, are

3538-493: The world's population, in both traditional societies as well as developed countries, still live or work in buildings made with clay, often baked into brick, as an essential part of their load-bearing structure. Also a primary ingredient in many natural building techniques, clay is used to create adobe , cob , cordwood , and structures and building elements such as wattle and daub , clay plaster, clay render case, clay floors and clay paints and ceramic building material . Clay

3599-606: Was piped and canalized from Owens River to the Van Norman Reservoir. Starting in 1913, the river and streams that fed Owens Lake were diverted by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and the lake level started to drop quickly. As the lake dried, soda processing at nearby Keeler, California , switched from relatively cheap chemical methods to more expensive physical ones. The Natural Soda Products Company sued

3660-533: Was the western shipping port for the Cerro Gordo Mines production and transported goods across Owens Lake with the northern ports of Swansea and Keeler directly below the mines. From Cartago a barge-like vessel, the Bessie Brady, was launched in 1872, which cut the three-day freight journey around the lake down to three hours. Much of the freight it carried was silver and lead bullion from

3721-461: Was used as a mortar in brick chimneys and stone walls where protected from water. Clay, relatively impermeable to water, is also used where natural seals are needed, such as in pond linings, the cores of dams , or as a barrier in landfills against toxic seepage (lining the landfill, preferably in combination with geotextiles ). Studies in the early 21st century have investigated clay's absorption capacities in various applications, such as

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