It includes slush pits and adjacent areas affected by the liquid wastes. The land is barren, although some of it can be reclaimed at high cost. Pits are open excavations from which soil and commonly underlying material have been removed, exposing either rock or other material. Commonly, pits are closely associated with Dumps. Playas are barren flats in closed basins in arid regions.
Many areas are subject to wind erosion and many are saline, sodic, or both.
The water table may be near the surface at times. Riverwash is unstabilized sandy, silty, clayey, or gravelly sediment that is flooded, washed, and reworked frequently by rivers. Rock outcrop consists of exposures of bare bedrock other than lava flows and rock-lined pits. Many rock outcrops are too small to be delineated as areas on soil maps but can be shown by spot symbols. Some areas are large, broken by only small areas of soil.