"Atacama" redirects here. For other uses, see Atacama (disambiguation).
Atacama Desert
Atacama by NASA World Wind
Map of the Atacama Desert: the area most commonly defined as Atacama is in yellow. In orange are the outlying arid areas of the southern Chala, Altiplano, Puna de Atacama, and Norte Chico.
The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of 105,000 km2 (41,000 sq mi),[2] which increases to 128,000 km2 (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.[3]
The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall, behind some specific spots within the McMurdo Dry Valleys.[4][5][6][7] It is the only hot true desert to receive less precipitation than polar deserts, and the largest fog desert in the world. The area has been used as an experimentation site for Mars expedition simulations due to its similarities to the Martian environment.
The constant temperature inversion caused by the cool north-flowing Humboldt Ocean current and the strong Pacific anticyclone contribute to the extreme aridity of the desert.[8] The most arid region of the Atacama Desert is situated between two mountain chains, the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range, which are high enough to prevent moisture advection from either the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean, creating a two-sided rain shadow effect.[9]
^Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545; Supplemental material 2 table S1b. [1]
^Wright, John W., ed. (2006). The New York Times Almanac (2007 ed.). New York: Penguin Books. pp. 456. ISBN 978-0-14-303820-7.
^Rundel, P.W.; Villagra, P.E.; et al. (2007). "Arid and Semi-Arid Ecosystems". In Veblen, Thomas T.; Young, Kenneth R.; Orme, Anthony R. (eds.). Physical Geography of South America. Oxford University Press. pp. 158–183.
^Clow GD, McKay CP, Simmons Jr GM, Wharton Jr RA (1988). "Climatological observations and predicted sublimation rates at Lake Hoare, Antarctica". Journal of Climate. 1 (7): 715–728. Bibcode:1988JCli....1..715C. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1988)001<0715:COAPSR>2.0.CO;2. PMID 11538066.
^Doran PT, McKay CP, Clow GD, Dana GL, Fountain AG, Nylen T, Lyons WB (2002). "Valley floor climate observations from the McMurdo Dry Valleys". Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 107 (D24): ACL–13.
^Porazinska DL, Fountain AG, Nylen TH, Tranter M, Virginia RA, Wall DH (2004). "The biodiversity and biogeochemistry of cryoconite holes from McMurdo Dry Valley glaciers, Antarctica". Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research. 36 (1): 84–91. doi:10.1657/1523-0430(2004)036[0084:TBABOC]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1523-0430. S2CID 35782175.
^"Top 10 driest places on Earth". Our Planet. 9 November 2015.
^Mckay, Christopher P. (2003). "Temperature and Moisture Conditions for Life in the Extreme Arid Region of the Atacama Desert: Four Years of Observations Including the El Niño of 1997–1998" (PDF). Astrobiology. 3 (2): 393–406. Bibcode:2003AsBio...3..393M. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.516.2293. doi:10.1089/153110703769016460. PMID 14577886.
^Veblen, Thomas T., ed. (2007). The Physical Geography of South America. Oxford University Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-0-19-531341-3.
The AtacamaDesert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching...
-69.63306 The Atacama Giant (Spanish: Gigante de Atacama) is an anthropomorphic geoglyph on the Cerro Unitas area of the AtacamaDesert, Chile. At about...
southern portion of the AtacamaDesert, the rest of the desert is mainly distributed among the other regions of Norte Grande. The Atacama Region is the third...
proliferation of insects, birds and small species of lizards. In the AtacamaDesert, a desert bloom (Spanish: desierto florido) occurs between the months of...
Pedro de Atacama Llamas in the sunset near San Pedro de Atacama Part of the Chaxas lagoon in the Salar de Atacama. Rainbow Valley. AtacamaDesert Puna de...
Although no part of Earth is known for certain to be rainless, in the AtacamaDesert of northern Chile, the average annual rainfall over 17 years was only...
The Atacama people, also called Atacameño, are an Indigenous people from the AtacamaDesert and altiplano region in the north of Chile and Argentina and...
Sahara desert, Grand Australian Desert and the Great Basin Desert, occur in low altitudes. One of the driest places on Earth is the AtacamaDesert. It is...
The AtacamaDesert border dispute was a dispute between Bolivia and Chile from 1825 to 1879 for the territories of the Atacama Coast due to the different...
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an astronomical interferometer of 66 radio telescopes in the AtacamaDesert of northern Chile...
Atacamadesert glass is an impactite found in the AtacamaDesert in Chile. The event was approximately 12000 years ago; traces of chondrites suggest a...
high in Earth's atmosphere. Atacamadesert glass – Desert glass found in the AtacamaDesert Darwin glass – Natural desert glass found in Tasmania Edeowie...
regions, with only western South America's AtacamaDesert to challenge it for age and aridity benchmarks. The desert geology consists of sand seas near the...
human fetus found in 2003 in the Chilean ghost town of La Noria, in the AtacamaDesert. DNA analysis done in 2018 on the premature human fetus identified unusual...
within the agricultural region in the north. List of deserts Nazca Lines AtacamaDesert Chala Suplee, Curt. "El Niño/La Niña: Nature's Vicious Cycle". National...
September 15, 2018, Graglia started the ultramarathon across Chile's AtacamaDesert. The translation company TransPerfect sponsored his run. Following the...
live in the AtacamaDesert, where in some areas it has not rained for over 50 years. A mountainous coastline running parallel to the desert enables them...
duo head across the AtacamaDesert towards the border at Portezuelo del Cajón with Bolivia, stopping to admire the Salar de Atacama and the Licancabur...
The delineations between the Monte Desert, the AtacamaDesert, and the Patagonian Desert are not exact and the desert seems to be more-or-less continuous...
AtacamaDesert of coastal Chile and Peru; the Baja California desert of Mexico; the Namib Desert in Namibia; the Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert;...
Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) is a radio telescope 5,064 meters above sea level, at the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the Atacamadesert in...
the Puna de Atacama dispute. Of the 75,000 km2 in dispute, 64,000 (85%) were awarded to Argentina and 11,000 (15%) to Chile. AtacamaDesert Altiplano Altiplano–Puna...
Mano del Desierto is a large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the AtacamaDesert in Chile, about 60 km to the south and east of the city of Antofagasta...
at 6,962 m or 22,841 ft); the driest non-polar place on earth, the AtacamaDesert; the wettest place on earth, López de Micay in Colombia; the largest...
as the Atacama Department and commonly known as the Bolivian coast, was the description of the extent of the Pacific coast of the AtacamaDesert included...
regions. It is characterized by the presence of the Atacamadesert, the most arid in the world. The desert is fragmented by streams that originate in the area...
had a specialized robot named Nomad travel through a portion of the AtacamaDesert. During this expedition, Nomad travelled over 200 kilometers and provided...
Salar de Atacama, located 55 km (34 mi) south of San Pedro de Atacama, is the largest salt flat in Chile. It is surrounded by mountains and lacks drainage...
Pacific coast, west of the Pampa del Tamarugal, which is part of the AtacamaDesert. It has a population of 191,468 according to the 2017 census. It is...
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