Salar de Uyuni (or Salar de Tunupa ) is the largest salt flats in the world with an area of ​​10 582 square kilometers (4 086 sq., mi). It is in the province of Daniel Campos in Potosa in southwest Bolivia, near the Andes peak and at an altitude of 3 656 meters (11Ã, 995Ã, ft) above sea level.
Salar formed as a result of the transformation between some prehistoric lakes. It is covered by several meters of salt crust, which has an exceptional flatness with an average elevation variation within a meter above the entire Salar area. The crust serves as a source of salt and includes a pool of seawater, which is rich in lithium. It contains 50% to 70% of the world's known lithium reserves, which are in the process of being extracted. Spacious areas, clear skies, and extraordinary surface flatness make Salar the ideal object to calibrate the Earth's observation altimeter.
The Salar serves as a major transportation route in Altiplano Bolivia and is a major breeding ground for several flamingo species. Salar de Uyuni is also a climatological transition zone since the towering tropical cumulus and cumulonimbus incusive clouds formed in the eastern salt plains during summer can not penetrate the drier western rim, near the Chilean border and the Atacama Desert.
Video Salar de Uyuni
Formasi, geologi, dan iklim
Salar de Uyuni is part of Altiplano of Bolivia in South America. Altiplano is a plateau, formed during the lifting of the Andes. The highlands include freshwater lakes and saltwater and salt flats and are surrounded by mountains without drainage outlets.
Salar geological history is associated with a sequential transformation between several large lakes. Around 30,000 to 42,000 years ago, the area was part of a giant prehistoric lake, Lake Minchin. The estimated age of radiocarbon dating from shells from outcropping and carbonate deposits varies between studies reported. Lake Minchin (named after Juan B. Minchin of Oruro) then turns into Paleo Lake Tauca has a maximum depth of 140 meters (460 feet), and an estimated age of 13,000 to 18,000 or 14 to 900 years, depending on the source. The youngest prehistoric lake is Coipasa, which is a radiocarbon dating from 11 to 500 to 13 400 years ago. When dry, it leaves two modern lakes, PoopÃÆ'³ and Uru Uru, and two major sand deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Salar de Uyuni. Salar de Uyuni spread over 10 582 km 2 , which is approximately 100 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. Lake PoopÃÆ'³ is a much larger neighbor of Lake Titicaca. During the rainy season, Titicaca overflows and removes dirt to PoopÃÆ'³, which, in turn, floods Salar De Coipasa and Salar de Uyuni.
Karatrin mud is interspersed with salt and saturated with salt water underlying the surface of Salar de Uyuni. Saltwater is a saturated solution of sodium chloride, lithium chloride, and magnesium chloride in water. It is covered with a dense crust of salt that varies in thicknesses between tens of centimeters and several meters. The Salar Center contains several islands, which are the remains of ancient volcanic peaks that sank during the Lake Minchin era. They include unusual and brittle coral structures and deposits that often consist of fossils and algae.
The area has a relatively stable average temperature with a peak of 21 ° C, Â ° C in November to January and the lowest of 13 ° C, Â ° C in June. Cold nights throughout the year, with temperatures between -9 Â ​​° C and 5 Â ° C. Relative humidity is relatively low and constant throughout the year at 30% to 45%. Rainfall is also low at 1 mm to 3 mm per month between April and November, but may increase to 80 mm in January. However, except for January, even in the rainy season the number of rainy days is less than 5 per month.
Maps Salar de Uyuni
Economic Influence
Salar contains large amounts of sodium, potassium, lithium and magnesium (all in the form of chlorides NaCl, KCl, LiCl and MgCl 2 , respectively), as well as borax. Of them, lithium is arguably the most important because it is a vital component of many electric batteries. With an estimated 9,000,000,000, Bolivia has about 43% of the world's known lithium reserves; most of them in Salar de Uyuni.
Lithium is concentrated in salt water under the salt crust at a relatively high concentration of about 0.3%. It is also present in the upper layers of a porous halite body located under saltwater; However, liquid salt water is easier to extract, by washing it into the crust and pumping out the saltwater. The saltwater distribution has been monitored by Landsat satellites and confirmed in ground drilling tests. Following these findings, an international company based in America has invested $ 137 million to develop lithium extraction. However, lithium extraction in the 1980s and 1990s by foreign companies received strong opposition from local communities. Locals believe that the money invested by mining will not reach them.
No mining plant is currently on site, and the Bolivian government does not want to allow exploitation by foreign companies. Instead, they intend to build their own demonstration plant with a simple annual production of 1 × 200 lithium and increase it to 30,000 by 2012.
Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons (9.8 billion tons, 11 billion tons) of salt, of which less than 25,000 are extracted every year. All miners working in Salar belong to the Colchani cooperative.
Due to its location, large area, and flatness, Salar is the main car transport route in Altiplano Bolivia, except when it is seasonally covered with water.
Name
Salar is salt in Spanish. Uyuni is derived from Aymara and means pen (cage); Uyuni is a family name and town name that serves as a gateway for tourists visiting Salar. Thus Salar de Uyuni can be freely translated as a salt flat with an enclosure, the latter probably referring to the "island" of Salar; or as "flat-salt in Uyuni (a city called 'pen for animals')".
The legend of Aymara says that the mountains of Tunupa, Kusku, and Kusina, which surround Salar, are giants. Tunupa married Kusku, but Kusku escaped from her with Kusina. Buzzing Tunupa started crying while nursing her son. Her tears mixed with milk and formed Salar. Many locals regard Tunupa as an important deity and say that it should be called Salar de Tunupa rather than Salar de Uyuni.
Flora and fauna
Salar almost does not have wildlife or plants. The latter is dominated by giant cactus ( Echinopsis atacamensis pasacana , Echinopsis tarijensis , etc.). They grow at a rate of about 1 cm/a to an altitude of about 12 m. Other checks include Pilaya, used by local residents to cure flu, and Thola ( Baccharis dracunculifolia ), which were burned as fuel. Also present are quinoa and queÃÆ'Â ± ua plants.
Every November, Salar de Uyuni is a breeding ground for three species of pink South American flamingo: Chile, Andean, and the rare flamingo James, their color may come from eating pink algae. Approximately 80 other bird species are present, including horned crows, Andean geese, and Andes hillstar. The Andean fox, or culpeo, also exists, and the islands of Salar (especially Incahuasi Island) have rabbit-like viscacha colonies.
Tourism
Hotel
Salar de Uyuni attracts tourists from all over the world. Since it is far from the cities, a number of hotels have been built in the area. Due to the lack of conventional construction materials, many of them are almost entirely (walls, roofs, furnishings) built with salt beams cut from Salar. The first hotel, named Palacio de Sal, was founded in 1993-1995 amidst the salt flats, and soon became a popular tourist destination. However, its location in the desert center causes sanitation problems, as most waste must be collected manually. Mismanagement caused serious environmental pollution and the hotel had to be demolished in 2002.
Funeral train
One of the main tourist attractions is the antique rail funeral. It is 3 km outside Uyuni and connected to the old railway line. The city previously served as a distribution center for trains carrying minerals en route to the Pacific Ocean port. The railway line was built by British engineers who arrived near the end of the 19th century and formed a sizable community in Uyuni. Engineers were invited by the UK-sponsored Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway Company, now Ferrocarril de Antofagasta, Bolivia. Rail construction began in 1888 and ended in 1892. This was driven by Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transportation system, but it was also continually sabotaged by Native Indians who saw Aymara as a nuisance to their lives. Trains are mostly used by mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned, resulting in a rail funeral. There is a proposal to build a museum from the cemetery.
Satellite calibration
Salts are ideal for calibrating satellite measurement equipment because they are large, stable surfaces with strong reflections, similar to ice sheets. As the largest salt plain on Earth, Salar de Uyuni is perfect for this purpose. In the low rainy period from April to November, due to the absence of industry and high elevation, the sky above Salar de Uyuni is very clear, and the air is dry (relative humidity is about 30%, rainfall is about 1 millimeter or 0.039 inch per month). It has a stable surface, smoothed by seasonal floods - water dissolves the surface of the salt and thus keeps it flat.
As a result, surface elevation variations over an area of ​​10,582 square kilometers (4.086Ã, sq., Mi) of Salar de Uyuni are less than 1 meter (3Ã, ft 3Ã, in) normal to the Earth's circumference, and there are several square kilometers on Earth that are flat. The surface reflectivity (albedo) for ultraviolet light is relatively high at 0.69 and shows a variation of only a few percent during the day. The combination of all these features makes Salar de Uyuni about five times better for satellite calibration than the surface of the oceans. By using Salar de Uyuni as a target, ICESat has achieved measurements of short-term heights below 2 cm (0.79 inches).
Using modern GPS technology, it can now be proved that Salar de Uyuni is not perfectly flat. New measurements reveal previously missed features that resemble ridges, hills, and valleys as high as millimeters. They are derived from variations in material density, and thus the force of gravity, under Salar sediments. Just as the sea level rises above the denser underwater volcano, the salt flat surface also rises and falls to reflect variations in subsurface density.
Gallery
See also
- Ouki
- Puka Mayu
- Great Salt Lake
- Rann of Kutch
References
Bibliography
External links
- Travel guide Salar de Uyuni from Wikivoyage
- Lonely Planet: Salar de Uyuni
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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