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As salt crystals grow over time, slabs of the salt crust are uplifted and eroded in the Badwater Basin, an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park. Death Valley is famous as the hottest place on earth, and the driest and lowest place in North America. The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of "bad water" next to the road in a sink; the accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name.
The pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects and the Badwater snail.Image credit: National Park Service
