sabkhan.

1878 A. K. Johnston Africa ii. 20 A long series of brackish lakes, here called Sebkha or Shott.

1891 Playfair in Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1890 876 Some parts of the Sahara are below the level of the sea, and here are formed what are called chotts or sebkhas, open depressions without any outlets, inundated by torrents from the southern slopes of the Atlas in winter and covered with a saline efflorescence in summer.

1909 E. Warming et al. Oecol. Plants lviii. 233 Here also may be placed the shotts and sebakh of North Africa, depressions which contain salt water during the rainy season, but many of which are dry and covered with incrustations of salt in summer.

1911 G. Bell Let. 23 Feb. (1927) I. xii. 280 The ground here is what the Arabs called ‘sabkha’, soft, crumbly salt marsh, sandy when it is dry and ready at a moment's notice to turn into a world of glutinous paste.

1937 Trans. Connecticut Acad. Arts & Sci. 33 110 In the smaller sebkas, comparable in dimensions to Carson Lake, the water is less salt, and supports a more varied fauna.

1957 R. J. H. Church W. Afr. xiv. 231 There is, in the north, a succession of salt encrusted mud-flats (sebkhas), marshy only after rare rains, which are remnants of former lagoons.

1963 D. W. Humphries & E. E. Humphries tr. H. Termier & G. Termier Erosion & Sedimentation v. 118 As a result of evaporation, some closed basins are floored by a saline crust which is called sebkha in North Africa.., solonchak in the region of the Caspian, and kevirs in Transcaspia.

1964 Nature 23 May 759/1 The coast of the Sheikdom of Abu Dhabi, Trucial States,..is bordered for most of its length by low coastal flats which stand just above normal high-tide level. These flats are known locally as sabkha.

1972 Sci. Amer. Dec. 29/3 Sabkhas became an object of considerable interest to geologists soon after it was realized that certain types of ancient rock formation are practically identical with the sabkha sediments; both are characterized by the presence of nodular anhydrite and stromatolitic dolomite.

1973 Nature 20 July 145/1 The Triassic sabkhas were not all coastal sabkhas, or tidal flats, some may have been continental sabkhas, or playa flats.

1973 Nature 7 Sept. 29/2 The cores..show microalternations of organic matter and carbonate (sometimes replaced by chert) which closely resemble Recent supratidal deposits in the Persian Gulf (sabquha),..which are a product of a hot dry climate and hypersaline marine conditions with frequent drying out of the sediment.

1977 A. Hallam Planet Earth 157 Many modern desert coasts are bordered by salt marshes, usually known as sabkhas.

1980 D. Creed Scarab v. 39 The long flat distances of the sabkha..the time-worn cliffs, the unbroken blue of the sky.