alkali flat

American  

noun

1. a level area, as a dry lake bed, in which evaporation has concentrated alkali minerals, as sodium sulfates and carbonates.

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alkali flat British  

noun

1. an arid plain encrusted with alkaline salts derived from the streams draining into it

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Etymology

Origin of alkali flat

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

alkali flat

When I was overcome with exhaustion, my sway morphing into a semi-conscious stupor, I knew it was time to go — the only thing separating me from my air mattress being a vast alkali flat.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2023

Centuries of evaporation have transformed this ancient lake bed into a dry alkali flat, inhabited today by a migratory roost of 30,000 sandhill cranes.

From New York Times ● Jul. 19, 2018

When the ceremony outgrew the beach, in the early 1990s, the burn was moved to a barren alkali flat in an empty corner of northwest Nevada.

From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2012

What we see here is a typical alkali flat, left when melting snow water and spring rains had passed.

From Time Magazine Archive

Each "drive" brought together on some alkali flat thousands of the restless, milling, bawling cattle.

From The Killer by White, Stewart Edward