Atacama Desert

Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert of Chile covers the northern third of the country stretching 1,000km (600 miles) and straddles the southern border of Peru. Bound on the west by barren hills and mountains on the Pacific coast it extends east into the Andes mountains. At an average elevation of about 4 kilometers (13,000 feet) it is not only the highest desert in the world but also the driest. In some parts rainfall has never been recorded. Vegetation is almost non-existent with 0.6mm to 2.1mm of rain falling around the region. Average daily temperatures range between 0°C-25°C making the Atacama relatively cool compared with the Sahara or the Great Sandy desert's.

Despite extremes and desolation there is stunning beauty. With the Andes as a backdrop the desert contains five snow topped volcanoes which are the highest volcanoes in the world and the highest elevations in South America.

Geography of the Atacama

Scene from Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) near San Pedro de Atacama.

The Atacama Desert has one of the most unique and seemingly hostile environments on the planet. Immediate surroundings are major contributing factors influencing its formation and physical characteristics. Just to the west and immediately below is the meeting point of the oceanic Nazca Plate and the continental South American Plate. The resultant tectonic action is constantly pushing the Andes ever higher and creates powerful volcanic and seismic activity. At the eastern edge of the Nazca Plate, 100 miles (160km) off the coast, the plate is subducted leaving the Peru-Chile (Atacama) Trench. It reaches a maximum depth of 26,460 feet (8,065 m) below sea level and is approximately 3,666 miles (5,900 km) long; it covers an expanse of some 228,000 square miles (590,000 square km). The proximity to this very large body of cold water has a substantial effect. Due mainly to the westerlies; prevailing winds which drive the cool ocean Humboldt Current (or Peru) through these cold waters. Ocean air is cooled by the current without moisture being retained to generate precipitation (clouds and fog are produced however). Also upwelling occurs off Peru year-round, but off Chile only during the spring and summer. Co-incidentally cold, nutrient-rich water brought to the surface by upwelling brings about extraordinary productivity resulting in the Humboldt Current supporting the world’s largest fisheries.

Another climatic factor is that the desert lies where the westerlies and the southern trade winds intersect at 25° south. Here, the surface winds are rushing both to the north and south, so air from higher up must descend to fill the gap. Ascending air causes rain: descending air tends to prevent rain. This phenomenon is not unique to the Atacama: almost all the major deserts of the world lie between 20° and 30° north or south latitude.

The on shore result of both climatic and topographical effects is that the Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth, and is virtually sterile because it is blocked from moisture on both sides by the Andes and the coastal mountains. The landscape and soil more closely resemble those of the planet Mars. It was thought that some soils contained no life at all until recently in an area south of Antofagasta, a new species of Deinococcus bacteria was found. Astrobiologists are studying in the Atacama to discover clues which may unlock secrets of life on other planets and the possibility of survival there. They are also studying the growth of plants in extreme places in order to develop plants that could be grown off—world or on Mars.

The lack of rain is not a new phenomenon. Dr. Tibor Dunai who spoke before the American Geophysical Union told the BBC in a news article: "We found loose sediment surfaces that would be washed away by any desert rainfall and these are older than 20 million years," he said. This is much older than other hyper-arid regions, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica (10-11 million years) and the Namib Desert in Africa (5 million years). "The origin of the aridity in the Atacama dates back to the opening of ocean pathways - the opening between South America and Antarctica, and between Australia and the Antarctic.

A few locations in the Atacama receive marine fog, providing sufficient moisture for hypolithic algae, lichens and even some cacti. A recent innovation has made it possible to catch water from the air. With the use of mesh nets, water is trapped and trickled off via piping into storage tanks.

Human habitation

Atacama road.

For humans to survive in and around the desert has been very challenging. It is not surprising then to discover in fact the Atacama is home to almost a million people. People are found mostly in coastal cities, fishing villages, oasis communities and scattered mining camps. In the altiplano, the descendants of the region's pre-Columbian natives (mostly Aymara and Atacama Indians) herd llamas and alpacas and grow crops with water from snowmelt streams.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the San Pedro area was the center of a Paleolithic civilization that built rock fortresses on the steep mountains encircling the valley.

The original inhabitants of the region were the Atacameños, an extinct Indian culture different from that of the Aymaras to the north and the Diaguitas to the south.

The Escondida Mine and Chuquicamata are also located within the Atacama.

The Pan-American Highway runs through the Atacama in a north-south trajectory.

The European Southern Observatory operates two major observatories in the Atacama Desert:

• The La Silla Observatory
• Located 130 km from Antofagasta at an altitude of 2635.43m and 12 km from the coast is the Paranal Observatory, which includes the Very Large Telescope.

A new radio astronomy observatory, called ALMA, is being built in the Atacama Desert by astronomers from Europe, Japan, and North America.

Another radio astronomy observatory, ACT, is being built on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert.

Great source of minerals

File:Chile-Tatio-Geyser.jpg

Geyser of Tatio in Atacama desert, Chile

The Atacama Desert holds major reserves of copper, gold, silver and industrial metals, it is the heart of Chile's mining industry. Chile's copper mines provide over 30% of the world's mine production of recoverable copper. It also contains the world's largest natural supply of sodium nitrate, which was mined on a large scale until the early 1940s. The Atacama border dispute between Chile and Bolivia began in the 1800s over these resources.

The Chuquicamata mine is the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, located 15 km north of the city of Calama in the region of Antofagasta. The mine is elliptical in form, with a surface of almost 8,000,000 m2, and it is 900 m deep. Copper from Chuquicamata is transported by rail southwest to Antofagasta. Approximately 30,000 people work in the remote region around the mine.

Chuquicamata is an opencast copper mine, where a relatively poor copper ore is mined in impressive huge amounts. Modern mining and smelting technology allows the usage of such depostits at unrivaled low costs. The ore contains only between 1.13% and 1.18% metals, most of it copper, but also molybdenum and selenium in a very low proportion.

Currently, the Atacama Desert is littered with approximately 170 abandoned nitrate (or "saltpeter") mining towns, almost all of which were shut down decades after the invention of synthetic nitrate in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. Some of these abandoned towns include Chacabuco, Humberstone, Santa Laura, Pedro de Valdivia, Puelma, Maria Elena and Oficina Anita. Chacabuco is a special case since it was later converted into a concentration camp during Pinochet's regime. To this day it is surrounded by 98 lost landmines and is guarded by one man who lives there alone.

The Atacama border dispute was a border dispute between Chile and Bolivia in the 1800s that ended in Chilean annexation of all of the Bolivian Coast and the southern tip of Bolivia's ally Peru, during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). Later Peru and Argentina became involved in the dispute. Some still consider the dispute ongoing as Bolivia continues to claim a sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

Border dispute

File:Tarapaca.jpg

Borders between Peru, Bolivia and Chile before the 1879 War of the Pacific (note: map does not faithfully represent some of the border, particularly the Bolivia-Argentina one.)

The origins of the Atacama Border dispute came from the borders established in the Spanish Empire that defined the Atacama Desert simply as the northern border of the Kingdom of Chile. Bolivian and Chilean historians disagree on whether the territory of Charcas, originally part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, later of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata and ultimately of Bolivia, included access to the sea. Supporting their claims with different documents, Bolivians claim that it did while Chileans disagree. When Simón Bolívar established Bolivia as a nation, he claimed access to the sea, although most economic exploitation of the coastal region was conducted by Chilean companies and British interests, under the aegis of Chile's more robust economy and more stable institutions.

The border dispute between Bolivia and Chile grew slowly during most of the 1800s over the Atacama Corridor, a part of the Atacama Desert which now forms northern Chile. The Atacama Desert is bordered by the Coast Range on the west and the Andes Mountains on the east. The geography of the area was a very large factor in determining how the border dispute began. Because of the mountains, the area experiences rain only 2 to 4 times a century, making it one of the driest places on Earth.

After the independence of Chile (1818) and Bolivia (1825) neither of the governments seemed concerned about defining its borders.

National boundaries in the Atacama region had still not been definitely determined when nitrate, silver and copper deposits were discovered in the area. Both Bolivia and Chile established competing claims for the territory. Other countries' interest was drawn due to the importance of nitrates in the production of fertilizer and high explosives. Britain, Spain and the United States had a strategic and economic stake in controlling the resource. Chile's influence grew in the disputed zone as miners, some of them backed by Chilean as well as foreign companies, began to advance northward, establishing mines and port facilities.

National borders in the region had not been clearly agreed upon until 1866; the two countries had negotiated a treaty which established the 24th parallel as their boundary, and entitled both Bolivia and Chile to share in tax revenue on mineral exports out of the territory between the 23rd and 25th parallels. A second treaty in 1874 superseded this, entitling Bolivia to collect full tax revenue between the 23rd and 24th parallels, but fixed tax rates on Chilean companies for 25 years. Bolivia subsequently became dissatisfied at the arrangement, as Chilean interests backed by British capital quickly expanded and controlled the mining industry, and feared Chilean encroachment on its coastal region.

The War of the Pacific

The treaty made in 1874 allowed Chile to exploit the area without fees for a period of 25 years. Four years later, a new Bolivian government rejected the treaty and attempted to raise taxes on a Chilean nitrate company. As an answer to this action, the Chilean army occupied Antofagasta, a Bolivian city. Chile declared war on Bolivia in March 1879, and on Bolivia's secret ally, Peru, in May 1879, which started the War of the Pacific. Within four years Chile defeated the joint war efforts of Bolivia and Peru. While Bolivian troops retreated from the disputed region early in the war, the Chilean Army had to occupy Peru's capital Lima in order to secure a peace treaty.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Ancón, Chile was to occupy the provinces of Tacna and Arica for 10 years, after which a plebiscite was to be held to determine their nationality. The two countries failed for decades to agree on the terms of the plebiscite. Finally in 1929, through the mediation of the United States under President Herbert Hoover, an accord was reached through which Chile kept Arica; Peru reacquired Tacna, plus received $6 million indemnity and other concessions.

At the end of the war, Chile acquired the Atacama Corridor (now Atacama Region) as well as the province of Antofagasta and the Peruvian Tarapacá, essentially turning Bolivia into a landlocked nation. In 1884, Bolivia signed a truce that gave control to Chile of the entire Bolivian coast, the province of Antofagasta, and its valuable nitrate, copper and other mineral deposits. A treaty in 1904 solidified this agreement permanently. In return, Chile agreed to build a railroad connecting the Bolivian capital of La Paz with the port of Arica and guaranteed freedom of transit for Bolivian commerce through Chilean ports and territory.

Chilean proposal of 1978

In 1978 the Chilean government of Augusto Pinochet made a proposal to Bolivia that included the ceding of some Chilean ports, such as Tocopilla to Bolivia, but not a corridor that would split Chile into two. One of the suspected reasons for this strange proposal by the right-wing nationalistic military regime of Chile was the ongoing Beagle conflict with Argentina over Picton, Lennox and Nueva Islands near Cape Horn. Chile wanted to secure Bolivia's neutrality in the event war broke out.

The proposal involved former Peruvian land. However, according to the treaty of Ancon, Chile could not give former Peruvian territories to other nations without Peru's agreement. The leftist dictator of Peru Francisco Morales Bermúdez opposed these changes but proposed to make Arica a territory governed jointly by the three states. Chile refused to accept this complicated shared sovereignty. Later that year Chile's relationship with Bolivia severed and diplomatic relations were broken. Today Chile and Bolivia still only maintains consular relations.

Recent history

Bolivia still holds claims on the Atacama Corridor, which Chile rejects, yet offers instead unrestricted but not sovereign maritime access through the territory for the export of Bolivian natural gas and other commodities. Today the territories lost by Bolivia and Peru provide the Chilean state nearly 40 percent of its income via the state–owned company CODELCO.

During the Bolivian Gas War the dispute rose again, as most Bolivians, including the president, opposed the future export of Bolivian gas trough Chilean territory.

As the 100 year anniversary of the the 1904 treaty approached, the words "gas-for-sea" became the slogan of people who opposed exportation.

The dispute became evident when Chilean president Ricardo Lagos faced the Bolivian president Carlos Mesa in the OEA, as Mesa addressed the situation in an audience which included all the presidents of the Americas.

Sources and Further Reading

• Braudel, Fernand, The perspective of the world, New York, Harper & Row, 1984, ISBN 0060153172
• Sagaris, Lake, Bone and dream : into the world's driest desert, Toronto, A.A. Knopf Canada, 2000, ISBN 0676972233
• Aarons, John; Vita-Finzi, Claudio, The useless land; a winter in the Atacama Desert, London, R. Hale, 1960, OCLC 2649656

External links

http://www.ls.eso.org/index.html http://www.eso.org/paranal/site/paranal.html

• Vesilind, Priit J., Parts of Chile's Atacama Desert haven't seen a drop of rain since recordkeeping began. Somehow, more than a million people squeeze life from this parched land, National Geographic, Accessed March 19, 2007
• Autonomous Robot Finds Life in Atacama Desert, Slash Dot, Accessed March 19, 2007
• Amos, Jonathan, December 8, 2005Chile desert's super-dry history, British Broadcasting Corporation, Accessed March 19, 2007
• Hudepohl, Gerhard, Atacama Desert Photographs, Atacama Photo, Accessed March 19, 2007

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