Mars-Relevant Environmental Conditions at the Lakes of Licancabur Volcano, Bolivia

Details Mars-Relevant Environmental Conditions at the Lakes of Licancabur Volcano, Bolivia Mars-Relevant Environmental Conditions at the Lakes of Licancabur Volcano, Bolivia

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p41d..06h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P41D-06

Biology

0315 Biosphere/Atmosphere Interactions (0426, 1610), 0406 Astrobiology And Extraterrestrial Materials, 4825 Geochemistry, 5200 Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology, 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

In the Bolivian Altiplano, a number of environmental variables combine to produce some of the most exotic and poorly understood lacustrine environments on Earth. In a cold, arid environment with extreme ultraviolet flux, these lakes provide a habitat for biology and a proxy for the study of potentially analogous martian environments. Here, we present new data on the physical, chemical environment of three such lakes at Licancabur Volcano, Bolivia and explore the quantitative basis for an analogy to Mars. Licancabur (22°50`'S, 67°53`'W) is a large, dormant volcano on the western edge of the Bolivian Altiplano at the border with Chile. Two hypersaline lakes, Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, are located at the volcano`'s 4300 m base. Within the past thirty years, these two were connected as a single reservoir, but local climate-driven evaporation (precipitation <100 mm/y, evaporation >1000 mm/y) has resulted in two topographically and chemically distinct bodies connected by a small stream. At nearly 6000 m, the small crater lake of Licancabur is one of the highest known and least explored on Earth. While sub-freezing average air temperature and extreme ultraviolet flux create an environment similar to the surface of Mars, the lake harbors a small biological community and is ice-covered only part of the year.

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