The Pilot Valley Playa is a playa

Sink (geography)

A geographic sink is a depression within an endorheic basin where water collects with no visible outlet. Instead of discharging, the collected water is lost due to evaporation and/or penetration...

 and salt pan

Salt pan (geology)

Natural salt pans are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts, and should not be confused with salt evaporation ponds.A salt pan is formed where water pools...

 in Box Elder County, Utah

Box Elder County, Utah

Box Elder County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. It lies on the north end of the Great Salt Lake, covering a large area north to the Idaho border and west to the Nevada border. Included in this area are large tracts of barren desert, contrasted by high, forested mountains. The...

 and Elko County, Nevada

Elko County, Nevada

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 45,291 people, 15,638 households, and 11,493 families residing in the county. The population density was 3/sq mi . There were 18,456 housing units at an average density of 1/sq mi...

 that is a remnant of Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 Lake Bonneville

Lake Bonneville

Lake Bonneville was a prehistoric pluvial lake that covered much of North America's Great Basin region. Most of the territory it covered was in present-day Utah, though parts of the lake extended into present-day Idaho and Nevada. Formed about 32,000 years ago, it existed until about 14,500 years...

. Located in northwestern Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

 and northeastern Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

, the Pilot Valley Playa varies from five to ten miles

Mile

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5,280 feet . The mile of 5,280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile...

 wide, and is thirty miles long, with an elevation of about 3800 feet. It is bordered by the Pilot Mountains

Pilot Range

The Pilot Range is a mountain range located in Box Elder County, Utah and Elko County, Nevada, in the Great Basin region, near the northwest side of The Great Salt Lake....

 to the west, and the Silver Island Mountains

Silver Island Range, Utah

The Silver Island Range is a mountain range in Utah, in the northwest corner of Tooele County and the southwest corner of Box Elder County, about northeast of Wendover.- Geography :...

 to the southeast.

Springs are located in the alluvial fan

Alluvial fan

An alluvial fan is a fan-shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain. A convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope is called a bajada, or compound alluvial...

s at the base of the Pilot Range, and no water flows from the Silver Island Mountains. Shallow groundwater (e.g., Bettridge Creek, with threatened Lahotan cutthroat trout

Cutthroat trout

The cutthroat trout is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes. It is one of the many fish species colloquially known as trout...

) along the western edge of the playa varies from fresh water to brine

Brine

Brine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...

 over a distance of about 2,000 feet.

Pilot-Thousand Springs Watershed

The Pilot Valley Playa gets very little precipitation

Precipitation (meteorology)

In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...

, experiences extreme temperatures and high wind

Wind

Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...

 speeds.

The playa is within the Pilot-Thousand Springs Watershed (USGS Huc

Hydrological code

A hydrological code or hydrologic unit code is a sequence of numbers or letters that identify a hydrological feature like a river, river reach, lake, or area like a drainage basin ....

 16020307), a 1780 sq mi (4,610.2 km²) endorheic

Endorheic

An endorheic basin is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow to other bodies of water such as rivers or oceans...

area.