Fig. 3: Subsurface geological and geotechnical data.

a Example geologic cores acquired in Searles Lake and China Lake. Smith & Pratt²³ interpret the repeating pattern symbols (i.e., clay, silt, sand, halite, and trona) to represent their relative abundance within a given layer, whereas the presence of stand-alone mineral symbols (i.e., trona, hanksite, borax, glaserite, and calcite) indicate the presence, but not necessarily the proportional abundance, of the mineral within a given layer. Note absence of any sand-sized particles in the Searles Lake core. b Example CPT log (CPT-1), location shown in Fig. 1b. Fr and Qtn are used to deduce SBT, which correlate with liquefaction susceptibility³⁰. SBT acronyms are defined in Supplementary Table S1. Materials considered to be classically liquefiable (SBT type SC) are shaded green in b and colored green in c, d. Materials that fall within the other six categories are shaded in gray in (b) and colored gray in c, d. c Fr versus Qtn at each depth interval for all CPT logs (CPT log locations are shown in Fig. 1b, inset). Black lines delineate between different SBTs, and red dashed line shows the I_c = 2.6 isoline. d Bar chart showing the relative abundance of each SBT for all CPT logs. Note that these CPT logs were acquired on the periphery of the lakebed, which is topped by an alluvial cover not present on the central lakebed (alluvial portion of CPT data is shown as thin dashed lines and no shading in b and not included in c, d).