Human Use
The extremely flat, smooth and hard surfaces of dry lakes make them ideal for motor vehicles and bicycles. Furthermore, large-sized dry lakes are excellent spots for pursuing land speed records, as the smoothness of the surface allows low-clearance vehicles to travel very fast without any risk of disruption by surface irregularities, and the path traveled has no obstacles to avoid. The dry lakes at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and Black Rock Desert in Nevada have both been used for setting land speed records. Dry lake beds that very rarely fill with water are sometimes used as locations for air bases, for similar reasons. Examples include Area 51 in Nevada, and Edwards Air Force Base (originally known as Muroc Dry Lake) in California.
Brines from the subsurface of dry lakes are often exploited for valuable minerals in solution. See, for example Searles Dry Lake and Lithium resources.
Read more about this topic: Dry Lake
Famous quotes containing the word human:
“We all ask ourselves the question why is it that some of us are killed while others remain. The only answer is our faith in the wisdom of a supreme being. If he has chosen us to live there must be a reason. I have tried to reckon out why. Perhaps he has saved us because we are needed as witnesses to remind each other, and our folks, and folks everywhere that war is too full of horrors for human beings.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Dickerman (Jack Webb)
“Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock as not going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch’s greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)