The Atacama Desert is by far the driest and oldest desert on Earth, showing a unique combination of environmental extremes (extreme dryness, the highest UV radiation levels on Earth and highly saline and oxidizing soils), explaining why the Atacama has been largely investigated as a Mars analog model for almost twenty years. Based on the source and the amount of water available for life and its analogy with Mars, two ecosystems are of interest in the Atacama; its Coastal Range and the much drier hyperarid core, which we here review in detail. Members of the three domains of life have been found across these ecosystems living at the limit of habitability, suggesting the potential dry limits for each domain, and also unveiling the highly patchy distribution of microbial life in its most extreme regions. The through study of the Atacama have allowed to understand how life has adapted to its extreme conditions, the specific habitats that life occupies in each case, (thus suggesting the mos
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Cristina Dorador hopes to be elected to Chile s constituent assembly and help draft an ecological constitution (image: Cristina Dorador)
The Salar de Llamara in the middle of the Atacama desert in northern Chile is one of the few places in the world where stromatolite formations living fossils that are the oldest life forms on the planet can be found. Studies describe them as representative of the early Earth.
Llamara is also home to Pampa Hermosa, Chilean company SQM’s flagship iodine extraction project.
When Cristina Dorador, a biologist at the Universidad de Antofagasta, arrived at the Llamara, she and her colleagues wept as they saw SQM s pipes and, next to them, what appeared to be communities of microbes floating lifelessly.