Compacted clay liners are vulnerable to desiccation cracking if exposed to atmospheric conditions for extended periods of time. Three clayey soils typically used as landfill liners were studied in relatively large-scale containers exposed to real atmospheric conditions for a full annual cycle. Desiccation cracking and particularly the variation in depth of cracks were examined in soil pairs; one set was directly exposed to atmospheric conditions and the other covered with a white separator geotextile. Cracks started to grow deeper in time with some variations with rainfall events up to a few months followed by no significant increase later. Smaller crack depths were observed for the soil with the lowest plasticity index. Using a geotextile cover resulted in 35-79% reduction in average crack depth. Hydraulic conductivity of the soils increased at the end of the experiment with greater increase for soils with deeper cracks. (C) 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.