Lakes in arid areas play an important role in keeping the balance between ecology and environment of the fragile ecosystems therein. Unfortunately, the lakes in the arid regions of China are shrinking, drying up or even disappearing, due to changing environment and human's abusive use of water and soil resources.[Objective] With the lake drying up, ground water table keeps on going down in depth and aeolian sediments build up, and consequently soil forming process begins to change. However, so far little has been reported in the literature about formation and development of sediment-derived soils in such an environment.[Method] In this study, both pedological and geochemical methods were applied to investigation of characteristics and mechanisms of salt and calcium carbonate accumulating in sediment-derived soils in the Gurinai Playa.[Result] Results show that the accumulation of various kinds of salts was the primary pedogenic process. Soil salt content, Na⁺ concentration and sodium absorption ratio in the surface soil layer of the sediment-derived soils in the Gurinai Playa reached 13.15~650.50 g·kg^-1, 186.9~12 114.7 mmol·L^-1 and 22.3~890.5(mmol·L^-1)^1/2, respectively, which suggest that the studied soils experienced strong salinization. In addition, with the Gurinai Playa drying up the accumulation of salts in the soils evolved from modern salinization to residual salinization, and soil salt composition gradually changed from Cl^-, and Cl^--SO₄^2- types in the initial stage of the soil evolution to SO₄^2--Cl^-, and SO₄^2- types in the more advanced stages. Given that Sr and Ca are quite similar in geochemical behavior, the analysis of composition of Sr isotopes demonstrates that secondary CaCO₃ predominated in soil total CaCO₃ accounting for over 80%. Moreover, soil CaCO₃ in this area was primarily derived from calcareous sediments and groundwater. The continuous provision of Ca²⁺ by groundwater led to strong accumulation of CaCO₃and formation of Calcicpan.[Conclusion] Interpretation of the accumulation of salts and CaCO₃ in soils during the drying progress of the Gurinai Playa provides a scientific basis for evaluating soil formation and evolution in relation to environmental changes, and for predicting changes in soils and ecological environment of the terminal lake areas of inland rivers.