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Salt ponds in Nueva Victoria, northern Chile are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 19 crew member on the International Space Station. This view shows a long alluvial fan, sloping from east to west (left to right) in northern Chile with solar evaporation (or salt) ponds, some brightly colored, near the foot of the fan. The alluvial fan sediments are brown and contrast sharply with tan sediments of the Pampa del Tamarugal, the great hyper arid inner valley of Chile's northern Atacama Desert. Nitrates and many other minerals are mined in this region. A few extraction pits and ore dumps are visible at bottom right, but most of the shallow diggings (0.5--5 meters deep) of a mine extracting caliche deposits -- a hard, cemented layer in the soil formed by downward movement and redeposition of sodium salts -- lie just outside the picture. Iodine is one of the products from mining; it is first extracted by a process known as heap leaching. Waste liquids from the iodine plants are dried in the tan and brightly colored evaporation ponds to crystallize nitrate salts for collection. Fertilizer production for higher-value crops is the main use for the recovered nitrates, but there are many other uses including the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, explosives, glass, ceramics, water treatment and metallurgical processes.
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Taken in
Space
Author
NASA
Description
Salt ponds in Nueva Victoria, northern Chile are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 19 crew member on the International Space Station. This view shows a long alluvial fan, sloping from east to west (left to right) in northern Chile with solar evaporation (or salt) ponds, some brightly colored, near the foot of the fan. The alluvial fan sediments are brown and contrast sharply with tan sediments of the Pampa del Tamarugal, the great hyper arid inner valley of Chile's northern Atacama Desert. Nitrates and many other minerals are mined in this region. A few extraction pits and ore dumps are visible at bottom right, but most of the shallow diggings (0.5--5 meters deep) of a mine extracting caliche deposits -- a hard, cemented layer in the soil formed by downward movement and redeposition of sodium salts -- lie just outside the picture. Iodine is one of the products from mining; it is first extracted by a process known as heap leaching. Waste liquids from the iodine plants are dried in the tan and brightly colored evaporation ponds to crystallize nitrate salts for collection. Fertilizer production for higher-value crops is the main use for the recovered nitrates, but there are many other uses including the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, explosives, glass, ceramics, water treatment and metallurgical processes.
Created on
Tuesday 5 May 2009
Source link
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/albums/72157627450576184
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EXIF Metadata
NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D2Xs
Make
NIKON CORPORATION
Model
NIKON D2Xs
DateTimeOriginal
2009:05:05 13:56:55
ApertureFNumber
f/7.6
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