The Badwater Basin is a salt flat adjacent to the Black Mountains that descends to the lowest elevation in North America at 279 feet (85 m)[4] below sea level. The massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. The basin is the second lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere, eclipsed only by Laguna del Carbón in Argentina at −344 feet (−105 m).

This pan was first created by the drying-up of 30-foot (9.1 m) deep Recent Lake 2000 to 3000 years ago. Unlike at the Devils Golf Course, significant rainstorms flood Badwater, covering the salt pan with a thin sheet of standing water. Each newly formed lake doesn't last long though, because the 1.9 inches (48 mm) average rainfall is overwhelmed by a 150-inch (3,800 mm) annual evaporation rate. This, the nation's greatest evaporation potential, means that even a 12-foot (3.7 m) deep, 30 miles (48 km) long lake would dry up in a single year. While flooded, some of the salt is dissolved, then is redeposited as clean, sparkling crystals when the water evaporates.