scholarly journals The meteorite flux of the past 2 m.y. recorded in the Atacama Desert

Geology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
pp. 673-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Drouard ◽  
J. Gattacceca ◽  
A. Hutzler ◽  
P. Rochette ◽  
R. Braucher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atacama Desert ◽  
The Past

scholarly journals Hydroclimate variability in the low-elevation Atacama Desert over the last 2500 yr

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 287-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. M. Gayo ◽  
C. Latorre ◽  
C. M. Santoro ◽  
A. Maldonado ◽  
R. De Pol-Holz
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Plant Macrofossils ◽  
Central Andes ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Riparian Ecosystems ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Climate Fluctuations ◽  
The Past

Abstract. Paleoclimate reconstructions reveal that Earth system has experienced sub-millennial scale climate changes over the past two millennia in response to internal/external forcing. Although sub-millennial hydroclimate fluctuations have been detected in the central Andes during this interval, the timing, magnitude, extent and direction of change of these events remain poorly defined. Here, we present a reconstruction of hydroclimate variations on the Pacific slope of the central Andes based on exceptionally well-preserved plant macrofossils and associated archaeological remains from a hyperarid drainage (Quebrada Maní, ∼21° S, 1000 m a.s.l.) in the Atacama Desert. During the late Holocene, riparian ecosystems and farming social groups flourished in the hyperarid Atacama core as surface water availability increased throughout this presently sterile landscape. Twenty-six radiocarbon dates indicate that these events occurred between 1050–680, 1615–1350 and 2500–2040 cal yr BP. Regional comparisons with rodent middens and other records suggest that these events were synchronous with pluvial stages detected at higher-elevations in the central Andes over the last 2500 yr. These hydroclimate changes also coincide with periods of pronounced SST gradients in the Tropical Pacific (La Niña-like mode), conditions that are conducive to significantly increased rainfall in the central Andean highlands and flood events in the low-elevation watersheds at inter-annual timescales. Our findings indicate that the positive anomalies in the hyperarid Atacama over the past 2500 yr represent a regional response of the central Andean climate system to changes in the global hydrological cycle at centennial timescales. Furthermore, our results provide support for the role of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature gradient changes as the primary mechanism responsible for climate fluctuations in the central Andes. Finally, our results constitute independent evidence for comprehending the major trends in cultural evolution of prehistoric peoples that inhabited the region.

The Paleoepidemiology of American Trypasonomiasis (Chagas disease)

1970 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilmar Salo ◽  
William C. Auferheide ◽  
Michael Madden ◽  
John Streitz ◽  
Jane Buikstra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soft Tissue ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Geographic Area ◽  
Northern Chile ◽  
Kinetoplast Dna ◽  
Testing Hypotheses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Tissue Specimens

Ancient DNA methodology was applied to extract and amplify a segment of kinetoplast DNA of Trypanosoma cruzi in soft tissue specimens from about 300 spontaneously mummified human bodies from the Atacama Desert in northern Chile and southern Peru. A DNA probe was then employed to hybridize with the amplicon. Results indicate that about 41% of the population in that geographic area were infected with the trypanosome over the past 9000 years. The epidemiological implications of these findings are discussed. It is also emphasized that this and several other paleoepidemiological studies in progress have established that population-study cohorts of mummies now can generate statistically valid paleoepidemiological investigations capable of testing hypotheses. These reflect the maturation of the academic discipline of the scientific study of mummies.

Terror and Awe

2020 ◽  
pp. 279-304
Author(s):  
Niall H. D. Geraghty
Keyword(s):  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Gustavo Gutierrez ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The Universe

In Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia de la luz(2010), the relatives of those imprisoned and disappeared in Chile’s Atacama desert search for the bodies of their loved ones. Simultaneously, archaeologists examine traces of the pre-Columbian societies that inhabited the area and astronomers explore the origins of the universe by analyzing light emitted from distant stars. Moving through these diverse regions of the past, the film variously captures anthropological, archaeological, geological, and cosmological durations. In contrast to interpretations which propose that this depiction of temporality allows for healing following Chile’s brutal dictatorship, this chapter employs Henri Bergson’s conception of time, Greg Hainge’s ontology of noise, and Jane Bennett’s conception of enchanted materialism to propose that Guzman’s film transmits awe and terror to the audience in an embodied manner. Reflecting on the religious connotations of Guzmán’s film in the light of the work of León Rozitchner and Gustavo Gutiérrez, the chapter proposes that the film is underpinned by the logic of the felix culpa and becomes an act of communion designed to reactivate past political struggles. This is to say that, at once scientific and theological, Nostalgia de la luz establishes the foundation for an immanent posthuman politics.

scholarly journals Precession modulation of the South Pacific westerly wind belt over the past million years

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (47) ◽  
pp. 23455-23460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Lamy ◽  
John C. H. Chiang ◽  
Gema Martínez-Méndez ◽  
Mieke Thierens ◽  
Helge W. Arz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Mixed Layer Depth ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Water Vapor Transport ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Westerly Wind ◽  
The South ◽  
The Past

The southern westerly wind belt (SWW) interacts with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and strongly impacts the Southern Ocean carbon budget, and Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics across glacial–interglacial cycles. We investigated precipitation-driven sediment input changes to the Southeast Pacific off the southern margin of the Atacama Desert over the past one million years, revealing strong precession (19/23-ka) cycles. Our simulations with 2 ocean–atmosphere general circulation models suggest that observed cyclic rainfall changes are linked to meridional shifts in water vapor transport from the tropical Pacific toward the southern Atacama Desert. These changes reflect a precessional modulation of the split in the austral winter South Pacific jet stream. For precession maxima, we infer significantly enhanced rainfall in the southern Atacama Desert due to a stronger South Pacific split jet with enhanced subtropical/subpolar jets, and a weaker midlatitude jet. Conversely, we derive dry conditions in northern Chile related to reduced subtropical/subpolar jets and an enhanced midlatitude jet for precession minima. The presence of precessional cycles in the Pacific SWW, and lack thereof in other basins, indicate that orbital-scale changes of the SWW were not zonally homogeneous across the Southern Hemisphere, in contrast to the hemispherewide shifts of the SWW suggested for glacial terminations. The strengthening of the jet is unique to the South Pacific realm and might have affected winter-controlled changes in the mixed layer depth, the formation of intermediate water, and the buildup of sea-ice around Antarctica, with implications for the global overturning circulation and the oceanic storage of atmospheric CO2.

scholarly journals Conquering the Past: Post-War Archaeology and Nationalism in the Borderlands of Chile and Peru, c. 1880–1920

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Gänger
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
The Body ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Post War ◽  
Sudden Collapse

In 1899, Chilean workers discovered the mummified body of a woman in a copper mine in Chuquicamata, in the Atacama Desert. Chile's most prominent archaeologists were called to examine the body and they estimated it had been in the mine for more than four centuries. What most astonished both the public and the scholarly community was that the body had been preserved virtually intact, apparently by nothing but the environmental conditions surrounding it. José Toribio Medina, a central figure in Chilean archaeology at the time, discussed this finding in 1901: Natural causes account for the mummy of Chuquicamata. The body is that of a female. The depth of the soil where the corpse was found was no more than six to eight feet, and the miner was probably searching the mountain when a sudden collapse buried her. The miner, feeling that the mountain was breaking down, lifted her arms up to protect her head, the position in which her body is preserved. … In some parts of the body, especially the arms, the difference between the injured and the intact parts of the skin can even be distinguished, to the point where it seems almost that blood is flowing from the wounds. In her face, hidden between her arms, her contracted mouth is visible… .1

scholarly journals Hydroclimate variability in the low-elevation Atacama Desert over the last 2500 years

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 3165-3202
Author(s):  
E. M. Gayo ◽  
C. Latorre ◽  
C. M. Santoro ◽  
A. Maldonado ◽  
R. De Pol-Holz
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Plant Macrofossils ◽  
Central Andes ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Riparian Ecosystems ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Climate Fluctuations ◽  
The Past

Abstract. Paleoclimate reconstructions reveal that Earth system has experienced sub-millennial scale climate changes over the past two millennia in response to internal/external forcing. Although sub-millennial hydroclimate fluctuations have been detected in the central Andes during this interval, the timing, magnitude, extent and direction of change of these events remain poorly defined. Here, we present a reconstruction of hydroclimate variations on the Pacific slope of the central Andes based on exceptionally well-preserved plant macrofossils and associated archaeological remains from a hyperarid drainage (Quebrada Maní, ~21° S, 1000 m a.s.l.) in the Atacama Desert. During the late Holocene, riparian ecosystems and farming social groups flourished in the hyperarid Atacama core as surface water availability increased throughout this presently sterile landscape. Twenty-six radiocarbon dates indicate that these events occurred between 1050–680, 1615–1350 and 2500–2040 cal yr BP. Regional comparisons with rodent middens and other records suggest that these events were synchronous with pluvial stages detected at higher-elevations in the central Andes over the last 2500 years. These hydroclimate changes also coincide with periods of pronounced SST gradients in the Tropical Pacific (La Niña-like mode), conditions that are conducive to significantly increased rainfall in the central Andean highlands and flood events in the low-elevation watersheds at inter-annual timescales. Our findings indicate that the positive anomalies in the hyperarid Atacama over the past 2500 years represent a regional response of the central Andean climate system to changes in the global hydrological cycle at centennial timescales. Furthermore, our results provide support for the role of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature gradient changes as the primary mechanism responsible for climate fluctuations in the central Andes. Finally, our results constitute independent evidence for comprehending the major trends in cultural evolution of prehistoric peoples that inhabited the region.

scholarly journals High- and low-latitude forcings drive Atacama Desert rainfall variations over the past 16,000 years

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (38) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J. González-Pinilla ◽  
Claudio Latorre ◽  
Maisa Rojas ◽  
John Houston ◽  
M. Ignacia Rocuant ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Low Latitude ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rainfall Variations

scholarly journals Biotechnological Applications Derived from Microorganisms of the Atacama Desert

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Azua-Bustos ◽  
Carlos González-Silva
Keyword(s):  
Water Availability ◽  
High Salinity ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Biotechnological Applications ◽  
Analog Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Basic Understanding ◽  
Domains Of Life ◽  
Immense Potential

The Atacama Desert in Chile is well known for being the driest and oldest desert on Earth. For these same reasons, it is also considered a good analog model of the planet Mars. Only a few decades ago, it was thought that this was a sterile place, but in the past years fascinating adaptations have been reported in the members of the three domains of life: low water availability, high UV radiation, high salinity, and other environmental stresses. However, the biotechnological applications derived from the basic understanding and characterization of these species, with the notable exception of copper bioleaching, are still in its infancy, thus offering an immense potential for future development.

scholarly journals “Climatic fluctuations in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert during the past 215 ka”

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Ritter ◽  
Volker Wennrich ◽  
Alicia Medialdea ◽  
Dominik Brill ◽  
Georgina King ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
The Past

The effects of climate change on the Atacama Desert as a pertinent Mars analog model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Azua-Bustos ◽  
Alberto G. Fairén
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Uv Radiation ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Chemical Species ◽  
Saline Soils ◽  
Northern Chile ◽  
Analog Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mars Analog ◽  
New Instruments

<p>Since 2003 the Atacama Desert in northern Chile is well-known as Mars analog model due to its extreme aridity, high UV radiation and highly saline soils containing highly oxidizing chemical species. Is in this frame that our team and others for the past decades have described a number of sites in the Atacama and their pertinence as Mars analog. However, since 2015 a number of climatic events never reported before have affected the Atacama, thought to be caused by climate change, with effects yet to be fully understood. Given that new instruments, techniques and rovers are, and will be tested in the Atacama before to be sent to Mars, is critical to be aware of these changes in order to properly plan new explorations and testing missions in this desert. Here we present some of the evidences of the changes brought by these environmental alterations, suggesting also the regions of the Atacama that still may be less or unaffected by them.</p>

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