Controls on the chemical composition of saline surface crusts and emitted dust from a wet playa in the Mojave Desert (USA)

Abstract Saline-surface crustsand their compositions at ephemeral, dry, and drying lakesare important products of arid-land processes. Detailed understanding is lacking, however, about interactions among locally variable hydrogeologicconditions, compositional control of groundwater on vadose zoneand surface salts, and dust composition. Chemical and physical data from groundwater, sediments, and salts reveal compositional controls on saline-surface crustsacross a wet playa, Mojave Desert, with bearing on similar settings elsewhere. The compositions of chemically and isotopically distinctive shallow (