Caliche (/kəˈliːtʃiː/) is a sedimentary rock, a hardened natural cement of calcium carbonate that binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt. It occurs worldwide, in aridisol and mollisol soil orders—generally in arid or semiarid regions, including in central and western Australia, in the Kalahari Desert, in the High Plains of the western USA, in the Sonoran Desert, Chihuahuan Desert and Mojave Desert of North America, and in Eastern Saudi Arabia at Al-Hasa. Caliche is also known as calcrete or kankar (in India). It belongs to the duricrusts. The term caliche is Spanish and is originally from the Latin calx, meaning lime.