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The Mechanism And Timescales Of Soil Formation In The Hyper-Arid Atacama Desert, Chile, Fan Wang
The Mechanism And Timescales Of Soil Formation In The Hyper-Arid Atacama Desert, Chile, Fan Wang
Open Access Dissertations
The planetary surfaces that evolve in the near absence of water are strikingly different from surfaces where water is abundant, but their formation is poorly documented. This research is an in-depth exemplary work in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile to understand the soil formation in hyper-arid environments, as an analog for planetary surfaces such as the Mars. In detail, the basic mechanism regarding the source material, timescale, paleo-climatic settings and the role of crypto-biotic crusts have been investigated to constrain the Atacama soil development.
The geochemical, isotopic and mineralogical composition of atmospheric dust deposited along a West-East transect in …