POTD November 13, 2013: Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Juab County, Utah

Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Juab County, Utah.
Photographer: Michael Vanden Berg

Baked by the summer sun, clay on the floor of an ephemeral pond in Utah’s west desert produces an expanse of mud cracks. Such playas, or pans, are common throughout the Great Basin; many, like the Bonneville Salt Flats, are floored by saline minerals.