Latest Atacama desert Stories

High in the Atacama region in northern Chile, one of the world's most advanced telescopes has just passed a major milestone. The first of many state-of-the-art antennas has just been handed over to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) project. ALMA is under construction on the plateau of Chajnantor, at an altitude of 5000 m. The telescope is being built by a global partnership, including ESO as the European partner.ALMA will initially comprise 66 high precision antennas,...

Illustrating the power of submillimeter-wavelength astronomy, an APEX image reveals how an expanding bubble of ionized gas about ten light-years across is causing the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps that are the birthplaces of new stars. Submillimeter light is the key to revealing some of the coldest material in the Universe, such as these cold, dense clouds.The region, called RCW120, is about 4200 light years from Earth, towards the constellation of Scorpius. A hot,...

A prodigious pinwheel shines in the darknessESO's Wide Field Imager has captured the intricate swirls of the spiral galaxy Messier 83, a smaller look-alike of our own Milky Way. Shining with the light of billions of stars and the ruby red glow of hydrogen gas, it is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy, whose shape has led to it being nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel. This dramatic image of the galaxy Messier 83 was captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory,...

ITT Corporation (NYSE:ITT) has received a multi-million dollar contract to provide filtered seawater to Esperanza, a large new copper-gold mining project in Chile's Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world. The mine will be the first large-scale mine in Chile to make use of seawater in the mining process. As part of the project, ITT will help move treated seawater from the ocean to an elevation of 7,550 feet above sea level over a distance of 91 miles. The ITT system will employ a...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - July 14, 2008) - Atacama Minerals Corp. ("Atacama" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:AAM) is pleased to announce that it has acquired a large land package in a major new potash region in northeastern Brazil. Application has been made for exploration permits in the state of Bahia covering 1,444 square kilometers (357,000 acres) of lands located 30 kilometres west of the port city of Salvador. The "Salvador Potash Project" is located along the Atlantic...

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- Antofagasta Minerals S.A. (Santiago, Chile), the mining arm of Antofagasta plc (LSE:ANTO) (London), is expected to select a construction firm by the end of August to build a processing plant for the Esperanza copper and gold project in the Atacama Desert near the city of Sierra Gorda in Chile. Aker Solutions (OSL:AKSO) (Santiago) and two other firms have been awarded one of several other contracts for the project. For details,...

Pacific Copper Corp. (OTCBB: PPFP) (CUSIP # 69412U 10 0) through its Chilean subsidiary, has executed a Letter of Intent ("LOI") with a single vendor to acquire a 100% interest in the Venado oxide copper project located 45 km northeast of the city of Copiapo, Atacama Region III, Chile, and a 100% interest in the El Corral oxide-chalcocite copper property located 110 km southeast of Copiapo, Chile and in Atacama Region III. The Venado property, which consists of nearly 3600 hectares, is...

Blockbuster shooting in ParanalCerro Paranal, the 2600m high mountain in the Chilean Atacama Desert that hosts ESO's Very Large Telescope, will be the stage for scenes in the next James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace". Looking akin to Mars, with its red sand and lack of vegetation, the Atacama Desert is thought to be the driest place on Earth. Cerro Paranal is home to ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), which, with its array of four giant 8.2-m individual telescopes, is the world's...

By Houston, John Hart, Dan; Houston, Andrew Abstract: Neogene sediments in the northern Chilean forearc display a wide range of near syndepositional structures. Analysis of the origin and distribution of these structures in space and time offers new insights into the development of the forearc basins. The structures are described in detail and show many features associated with soft-sediment deformation, pseudo-diapirism and slope failure. Synsedimentary deformation reached a peak in the...

In the thin, dry air of northern Chile's Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 16,500 feet, an amazing new telescope system is taking shape, on schedule to provide the world's astronomers with unprecedented views of the origins of stars, galaxies, and planets. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will open an entirely new "window" on the Universe, allowing scientists to unravel longstanding and important astronomical mysteries."Most of the photons in the Universe...