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DOWN TO EARTH: No frogs in these ponds
6 Jun 2009
Brightly coloured solar evaporation (salt) ponds in a desert landscape give this astronaut photo an unreal quality.
The ponds sit near the foot of a long alluvial fan in the Pampa del Tamarugal, the great hyper-arid inner valley of Chile's Atacama Desert. The alluvial fan sediments are dark brown, and they contrast sharply with lighter brown sediments of the Pampa del Tamarugal.
Nitrates and many other minerals are mined in this region. A few extraction pits and ore dumps are visible at upper left.
Iodine is one of the products from mining. It is first extracted by heap leaching. Waste liquids from the iodine plants are dried in the evaporation ponds to crystallise nitrate salts for collection.
The recovered nitrates are mainly used for fertiliser for higher-value crops. They are also used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, explosives, glass and ceramics, as well as in water treatment and metallurgical processes.
Adapted from information issued by Image provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Centre. Caption adapted from information issued by M. Justin Wilkinson, NASA-JSC.
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