The Salar de TalarThe most barren place on Earth, as we named the Atacama desert in a recent post (h
The Salar de TalarThe most barren place on Earth, as we named the Atacama desert in a recent post (http://tinyurl.com/l8deygr) is filled with salars, large, often seasonal salty lakes into which such rainfall and meltwater flowing from the Andes ends up, bringing its loads of dissolved minerals with it. These closed basins (called endorheic) have no exits, and so concentrate the dissolve minerals, particulalry when they evaporate during dry periods. They are often filled with flamingos feeding on the algae growing within the brine.This example is located in the Chilean Andes in the high puna ecosystem at nearly 4,000 metres, beneath a long chain of volcanoes near San Pedro de Atacama. We accompanied our previous post with an ironic picture showing one of the desert’s rare moments of flowering, this photo is the more usual appearance of these parts.LozImage credit: Luca Galuzzi -- source link
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