What is "sabkha"

n. An area of coastal salt flats, especially in North Africa and Arabia.

Sabkha is a phonetic translation of the Arabic word for a salt flat. Sabkhas are supratidal, forming along arid coastlines and are characterized by evaporite- carbonate deposits with some siliciclastics. Sabkhas form subaerial, prograding and shoaling-upward sequences that have an average thickness of a meter or less. The accepted type locality is along the coast of the Persian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates.