White OceanDeath Valley, California, USA. The Badwater Basin in the Death Valley was once the bottom of a huge lake that stretched for miles across the western part of what is now the Mojave desert in California. When the temperatures in the Death Valley raised to world record levels at the end of the last ice age, the lake quickly dried up leaving a huge depression, the lowest point in North America, covered by what is normally known as table salt. Washed by