playa

playa

 or pan or flat or dry lake

Flat-bottomed depression that is periodically covered by water. Playas occur in interior desert basins and adjacent to coasts in arid and semiarid regions. The water that periodically covers the playa slowly filters into the groundwater system or evaporates into the atmosphere, causing the deposition of salt, sand, and mud along the bottom and around the edges of the depression.

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playa [′plī·ə]

(geology)

A low, essentially flat part of a basin or other undrained area in an arid region.

A small, generally sandy land area at the mouth of a stream or along the shore of a bay.

A flat, alluvial coastland, as distinguished from a beach.