Sabkha and Desert Features - Introduction West, I.M. 2001. Introduction Sabkha is an arabic name for a salt-flat that has come into general use in sedimentology following classic research in the United Arab Emirates of the Arabian Gulf in the 1960s and later. They are flat and very saline areas of sand or silt lying just above the water-table and often containing soft nodules and enterolithic veins of gypsum or anhydrite. A thin crust of halite and gypsum may be present in some parts.
Many ancient evaporites show sedimentary feature of sabkhas, such as gypsum nodules.
A supratidal part of a large coastal sabkha at Umm Said in Qatar. This particular area is the remains of a lagoon indirectly filled with siliciclastic sand of aeolian origin, originating from some large barchan sand dunes. Any higher dryer sand can be moved away by deflation. A lower part of the same sabkha where a thin halite crust is developed. The halite is empheral and easily dissolved by a rare flood of rain.