Geomorphic evolution

Impact of climatic change

Playas are exceptionally sensitive to environmental change. They have been most profoundly influenced by changes in hydrologic regimen induced by the climatic variations of the Quaternary Period (i.e., the past 2.6 million years). All have experienced episodes of expanded lake levels in the past. Such predecessors are often called pluvial lakes, thereby implying periods of increased rainfall. It is also possible, however, that lakes could have expanded because of other factors, including increased groundwater inflow and/or decreased evaporation/transpiration.

Paleolake chronologies

Modern geochronologic techniques, such as radiocarbon dating, permit the comparison of fluctuations in the paleolakes that were predecessors to many modern playas. In northern Africa lakes were at a moderately high level from 30,000 to 22,000 years ago. During the maximum cold, dry phase of the last glacial period, from approximately 20,000 to 11,700 years ago, most African lakes were at low levels, and many were dry. From 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, lakes rose to maximum high levels. Lake Chad expanded to the size of the modern Caspian Sea. Small volume lakes, however, are more sensitive to climatic change, recording higher frequency oscillations in the hydrologic balance. Since about 4,000 years ago, the north African lakes have fallen to the range of their modern lows.

Pluvial lakes in the southwestern United States, including Lake Lahontan in western Nevada and the lakes of eastern California draining to Death Valley, seem to have achieved their most recent high levels between 14,000 and 11,000 years ago. The period from 30,000 to 24,000 years ago was marked by low lake levels. Another low was reached about 7,000 years ago. Many of the lakes of the southwestern United States, however, seem to have been not quite in phase with one another.

Effects of wind action

Playas and saline flats are particularly susceptible to wind action. Clays and salts form crusts that curl and flake upon drying. The flakes and curls are readily deflated, and these wind-eroded sediments are then deposited leeward of the playas and saline flats from which they were removed. This process is increasingly recognized as a source of dust hazard, as studies around Owens Lake, California, and in western China have shown.

In Australia many playas have large transverse crescentic foredunes on their leeward side. Because of their silt and clay composition, these features are sometimes called clay dunes. In Australia they are known as lunettes. James M. Bowler, an Australian Quaternary stratigrapher, produced a precise chronology of playa development and associated eolian activity in the desert of western New South Wales, Australia. There, numerous small lakes reached their maximum extent 32,000 years ago, approximately coincident with the age of the first human remains in Australia. From about 26,000 years ago, the lakes fell to low levels. Playas formed roughly 16,000 years ago at a time when eolian activity peaked. High lakes again occurred about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, but playas were reestablished after that.

The present association of playas, lunettes, and linear dunes in the Australian deserts may imply a causative association. C.R. Twidale proposed that the linear dunes developed as lee-side accumulations of sand trapped by the growth of lunettes. Climatic change is critical to the association.