Laguna Salada (Spanish, "salty lagoon") is a vast dry lake some 10 meters below sea level in the

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Ariz ...

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, southwest of

Mexicali Mexicali (; ) is the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California. The city, seat of the Mexicali Municipality, has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the Calexico–Mexicali metropolitan area is home to 1,000,0 ...

. The lake's shape vaguely resembles a

rhombus In plane Euclidean geometry, a rhombus (plural rhombi or rhombuses) is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. Another name is equilateral quadrilateral, since equilateral means that all of its sides are equal in length. The ...

. When dry, the flatness of the exposed lake bed sediments makes it a favoured location for recreational driving. It is also notorious for its dust storms when dry, usually the result of

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

al thunderstorms during the summer. During times of significant rain the lagoon can fill completely with water, leaving the unpaved road along its west bank as the only means of traversing the area. Flanked by the

Sierra de Los Cucapah Sierra de Los Cucapah is a mountain range in Baja California state, Northwestern Mexico. It is located south of Mexicali. The range is named after the Cocopah who arrived in the area around 700 b.c and still live in the area. The Sierra de los Cuc ...

and the

Sierra de Juárez The Sierra de Juárez, also known as the Sierra Juarez, is a mountain range located in Tecate Municipality and northern Ensenada Municipality, within the northern Baja California state of northwestern Mexico. It is a major mountain range in the ...

mountain ranges, the lake is approximately long and at its widest point.

Tectonic activity

The lake itself is located on the bottom of a shallow depression, a graben, which is linked to the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizonta ...

, and the

East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise is a mid-ocean rise (termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), a divergent tectonic plate boundary located alon ...

as part of the Laguna Salada Fault. This fault is connected to the Salton Trough fault which holds a similar depression, the

Salton Sink The Salton Sink is the low point of an endorheic basin, a closed drainage system with no outflows to other bodies of water, in the Colorado Desert sub-region of the Sonoran Desert. The sink falls within the larger Salton Trough and separates th ...

. This sink is bigger than Laguna Salada and contains the

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gulf ...

. The

2010 Baja California earthquake The 2010 Baja California earthquake (also known as 2010 Easter earthquake, 2010 Sierra El Mayor earthquake, or 2010 El Mayor – Cucapah earthquake) occurred on April 4 (Easter Sunday) with a moment magnitude of 7.2 and a maximum Mercalli intens ...

occurred here.

References

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External links

Satellite Photo (Google Maps)

Vol. 44, Num. 1, pp. 103-111
A technical paper by Juan Contreras, Arturo Martín-Barajas and Juan Carlos Herguera on sedimentation of the LS-basin. Published in Geofísica Internacional (2005) {{DEFAULTSORT:Laguna Salada Salada Landforms of Baja California Depressions (geology) Endorheic lakes of North America ← Mexicali Municipality

Tectonic activity

See also

References

External links