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Atacama Desert

Lofted dust layers over the Andes mountains
Posted inNews

Iodine-Laden Desert Dust Is Eating at Ozone Pollution

by Jackie Rocheleau 28 February 202228 February 2022

In a happy accident, scientists found a potential solution to an atmospheric chemistry mystery. Their findings could be a missing piece in the iodine cycle and in atmospheric models.

The Atacama Desert, Chile
Posted inResearch Spotlights

Understanding Rare Rain Events in the Driest Desert on Earth

by Emily Cerf 18 January 202218 January 2022

A new study reveals the atmospheric paths of storm events that can deliver a decade’s worth of rain in a few hours to the Atacama Desert.

A lump of glass
Posted inNews

Glassy Nodules Pinpoint a Meteorite Impact

by Katherine Kornei 5 August 20215 May 2022

Researchers working in Chile’s Atacama Desert have collected thousands of “atacamaites” that suggest a meteorite struck the region roughly 8 million years ago.

A rock pile in the Atacama Desert, Chile, with one rock in focus and two people standing in the background
Posted inNews

Desert Microbes Mine for Water

by Lesley Evans Ogden 29 June 20204 January 2023

Scientists studying a cyanobacterium isolated from rock samples in the Atacama Desert found out how the bacteria extract water to live. Their results may help identify likely sites for life on Mars.

Six people fan out in a line, searching the ground for rocky meteorites in the Atacama Desert
Posted inNews

Oldest Meteorite Collection Found in World’s Oldest Desert

by Mary Caperton Morton 14 June 20194 October 2021

Rare 2-million-year record reveals the meteorite flux rate.

Deep drilling in the Atacama Desert in 2017
Posted inNews

Atacama’s Past Rainfall Followed Pacific Sea Temperature

by Kimberly M. S. Cartier 23 April 201928 September 2021

This is the first paleoclimate record of precipitation near Atacama’s hyperarid core and suggests that its moisture source is different from that of the Andes.

This lagoon appeared in 2017 in Chile’s Atacama Desert and evaporated months later.
Posted inNews

Atacama Desert’s Unprecedented Rains Are Lethal to Microbes

by Katherine Kornei 12 November 201812 April 2022

Rainfall in the driest parts of Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2017 resulted in hypersaline lagoons that killed the majority of microbes adapted to millions of years of arid conditions.

CSalar-Grande-Basin-Chile-rock-minerals-clues-to-carbon-cycle-life-on-Mars
Posted inResearch Spotlights

Rocks in Chile Help Scientists Hunt for Life on Mars

by M. McKinnon 9 August 201612 April 2022

Investigating oxalate minerals in the Atacama Desert provides a terrestrial analogue to test techniques that could be used to study the carbon cycle in the cold deserts of Mars.

Features from AGU Journals

RESEARCH SPOTLIGHTS
JGR: Solid Earth
“New Tectonic Plate Model Could Improve Earthquake Risk Assessment”
By Morgan Rehnberg

EDITORS' HIGHLIGHTS
AGU Advances
“Eminently Complex – Climate Science and the 2021 Nobel Prize”
By Ana Barros

EDITORS' VOX
Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists
“New Directions for Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists”
By Michael Wysession


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