A drying lakebed · real-time desiccation
PLAYAA salt flat drying in front of you. The mud crust contracts into polygons, every rim curls upward, and a white mineral rime spreads along the cracks as the seasons pass without rain.
Desiccation survey
Plate 0031
Drying
Continuous survey — Kestrel Flat has not taken measurable rain in 7 dry seasons.
Field notes — how a lakebed comes apart
01 — Contraction
The crust pulls itself into polygons
As the last capillary water leaves, the clay shrinks. Tension outruns cohesion and the surface answers in polygons — three cracks meeting at every junction, the honest signature of a slab drying evenly from the top down.
02 — Curl
Every rim lifts toward the sun
The top skin dries faster than the clay beneath it, so each plate curls at its broken edges. Given enough seasons the flat becomes a tilework of shallow dishes, their upturned rims catching the low light.
03 — Rime
What was dissolved is left behind
Brine wicks upward and evaporates, printing a white rime of gypsum and halite along every fissure. The playa grows paler each year it goes without rain — a ledger of drought written in salt.