Salar de Uyuni

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Coordinates: 20°08′01.59″S, 67°29′20.88″W

Location of Salar de Uyuni
Location of Salar de Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni from space, with Mount Tunupa in the middle. Relic shorelines visible in the surface salt deposits (lower right of the image) attest to the occasional presence of small amounts of water in the salar.
Salar de Uyuni from space, with Mount Tunupa in the middle. Relic shorelines visible in the surface salt deposits (lower right of the image) attest to the occasional presence of small amounts of water in the salar.
Piles of salt at Salar de Uyuni.
Piles of salt at Salar de Uyuni.
When it is covered with water, the Salar de Uyuni reflects the sky.
When it is covered with water, the Salar de Uyuni reflects the sky.

Salar de Uyuni (or Salar de Tunupa) is the world's largest salt flat[1] at 10,582 km² (4,085 square miles).[2] It is located in the Potosí and Oruro departments in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 3,650 meters high. The major minerals found in the salar are halite and gypsum.[1]

Contents

[edit] Formation

Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of Lake Minchin, a giant prehistoric lake. When the lake dried, it left behind two modern lakes, Poopó Lake and Uru Uru Lake, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Uyuni. Uyuni is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States.

[edit] Economic influence

Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons of salt, of which less than 25,000 tons is extracted annually. All miners working in the Salar belong to Colchani's cooperative. Every November, Salar de Uyuni is also the breeding grounds for three species of South American flamingos: the Chilean, James's and Andean flamingos. It is also a significant tourist destination; highlights include a salt hotel and several so-called islands. As it is so flat it serves as a major transport route across the Bolivian Altiplano.[1]

[edit] Satellite calibration

Due to its large size, smooth surface, high surface reflectivity when covered with shallow water, and minimal elevation deviation, Salar de Uyuni makes an ideal target for the testing and calibration of remote sensing instruments on orbiting satellites used to study the Earth.[3] In addition to providing an excellent target surface the skies above Salar de Uyuni are so clear, and the air so dry, that the surface works up to five times better for satellite calibration than using the surface of the ocean.[4] In September of 2002 a team took detailed GPS elevation measurements of a portion of the salt flats.[5] This GPS data was then compared to the data from several ICESat passes over the area were used to evaluate the accuracy and precision of ICESat's instruments.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. NASA Earth Observatory. Retrieved on 2007-12-01.
  2. ^ Uyuni Salt Flat. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007-12-01.
  3. ^ "The Hills And Valleys Of Earth's Largest Salt Flat", 2007-11-29 publisher GPS Daily. 
  4. ^ Hand, Eric. "The salt flat with curious curves", Nature, 2007-11-30. 
  5. ^ a b Fricker, H. A.; Borsa, A.; Minster, B.; Carabajal, C.; Quinn, K.; Bills, B. (September 2005). "Assessment of ICESat performance at the salar de Uyuni, Bolivia". Geophysical Research Letters 32 (21): L21S06. doi:10.1029/2005GL023423. 

Google Map of Salar de Uyuni

The Salar de Uyuni reflecting a sunset.
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