Atacama Desert

While Chile made major news headlines courtesy of the Chilean minor miracle, still relatively few people know about the very unique landscape in which the mining incident occurred. The Atacama Desert stretches across northern Chile and into Peru, just one of a wide variety of natural wonders found within the Chilean borders, spanning over 40,000 square miles in total. Though the arid region may appear much like any other desert to the casual onlooker, the Atacama Desert is believed by many scientists to be the driest place on Earth.The Atacama’s dryness is due it its location, blocked on both sides from moisture by the Andes Mountains and Chilean Coast Mountain Range, coupled with the inversion layer that results from the Humbolt Current coming in from the West and the anticyclone winds of the South Pacific High. According to researches, if desert dwellers are cautiously optimistic such rain patterns might balance out, they should be prepared to wait for some time. For 400 years from 1570 to 1970 lacked any significant amount of rainfall. Experts estimate many of the area’s river beds have been dry for more than 120,000 years.Plant life in the Atacama doesn’t survive by tradition precipitation, rather through a marine fog that will occasionally grace the desert, known as the Camancha. The Camancha allows for smaller fungi, algae and even a cactus or two to set up residence in the heavier fogged regions. Of course, this fog is largely limited to the coastal area, much of the desert is completely barren. Similarly the desert is sparsely populated, with almost all settlements hovering towards the westernmost coastal boundary. While there are pre-Columbian societies that have lived in valleys and oases in the interior desert for generations upon generations, little development has matriculated outwards and life inside such settlements is often very conservative and limited.Why then in a land so desolate do mining operations persist? While the land’s soil in nearly unsalvageable for plant life, often used by Hollywood directors to imitate a Mars-like environment, it is actually rich in terms of minerals, including copper and one of the largest supplies of sodium nitrate in the world. Like much of the desert, however, large scale sodium nitrate mining operations have fallen mostly into disrepair, as the invention of synthetic nitrate largely rendered traditionally mined nitrate. Still the copper reserves send miners into the desert to this day.Astronomers also take an interest in the desert aside from its similarity to our Red Planet neighbors. With high altitude, a lack of moisture necessary to produce any cloud interference and almost no pollution due to the population dearth, the Atacama is among the best known places in the world to conduct space observation. Both La Silla Observatory and Paranal Observatory were constructed to take advantage of the deserts optimal climate. In fact astronomical history in the area has led to a bit of lore around the area. The Atacama Giant was originally a large humanoid apparatus depicted to help ancient civilization interpret the setting of the moon and other astronomical events. Spanning to a height of 282 ft., the Astracama Giant is perhaps the longest surviving creature in the desert, serving as a deity for natives from 1000 to 1400 CE.