
Laguna Salada
Laguna Salada (“salty lagoon”) is a vast dry lake some 10 meters below sea level (sometimes wet – sometimes dry) in the Sonoran Desert of Baja California, 30 km southwest of Mexicali.
The lake’s shape vaguely resembles a rhombus. When dry, the flatness of the exposed lakebed sediments makes it a favored location for recreational driving.
It is also notorious for its dust storms (when dry), usually the result of monsoonal 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 and the Sierra de Juárez mountain ranges, the lake is approximately 60 km long and 17 km at its widest point.
The lake itself is located on the bottom of a shallow depression, a graben, which is linked to the San Andreas Fault, and the East Pacific Rise as part of the Laguna Salada Fault.
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