Where is the driest place on earth. Dry Valleys in Antarctica: the driest place on Earth

When talking about the driest place on earth, Africa is the first thing that comes to mind. But it was not there, it turns out that for about 2 million years the Dry Valley, located in Antarctica, has not seen precipitation.

Just rearrange, as many as 2 million years of absolute drought! By comparison, the Atacama Desert, mistakenly considered by many to be the driest place in the world, has had no rain in just 400 years.

The dry valleys are called the territories of three valleys - Victoria, Wright and Taylor. Together they occupy an area of 8 thousand km2. and are the only part of Antarctica that is not covered by ice.

The katabatic wind is responsible for the lack of precipitation - this is a stream of air that, with great speed, under the influence of gravity, rushes from mountain peaks and vaporizes everything in its path. Max speed wind - 320 km / h - this is the fastest wind on the planet.

Dry valleys are famous all over the world not only because of the lack of rainfall. Paradoxically, there are water bodies in the driest place on the planet. The Taylor Valley is home to Blood Falls, and the Wright Valley is home to the most salt Lake in the world - Don Juan.

The concentration of salt in it is twice that of the Dead Sea.

Due to the harsh natural conditions in the Dry Valley, life is almost impossible. The only life form discovered so far is the endolytic photosynthetic bacteria. As the ice begins to melt, the bacteria come out and turn it red, which is why the water in Blood Falls is that color.

NASA researchers have had their eyes on the Dry Valleys for a long time. The fact is that the climate of Mars is similar to the climate of the Dry Valleys, so various studies and space tests are being carried out there.

Since 2004 unique territory dry valleys is taken under the protection of UNESCO.

There is a widespread misconception on the Internet that the most dry place in the world is located in Chile. In fact, the Atacama Desert is in second place behind the Dry Valleys in Antarctica. If you go deeper into Antarctica from the Ross Sea, you will reach three so-called "dry valleys" (Victoria, Wright and Taylor). Katabatic winds blow here (the fastest wind on the planet, reaching a speed of 320 km / h), which cause increased evaporation of moisture. Thus, the valleys have been free of ice and snow for about 8 million years. However, in some areas, approximately For 2 million years there was no precipitation at all.

Let's find out more about them...

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However, water in the valleys is still present - in the form of the most saline lakes on Earth. As the temperature here sometimes rises to zero, they thaw in places, giving the place a surreal look of a tropical resort. In the largest of these lakes, polar explorers even go diving. They say that at the bottom lies the mummified corpse of a seal, which inexplicably hobbled here from the coast.

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In the middle of Antarctica, covered with a continuous snow and ice shell, a dark spot gapes - these are the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Today they are the driest place on our planet. For millions of years there has been neither snow nor rain!

Dry Valleys - Victoria, Wright and Taylor - cover an area of 4800 square meters (this is 0.03% of the continent's area). The temperature there often drops to -50°C, and there is polar night for four months of the year.

The dead seal is perhaps the only representative local fauna. The climate here is so severe that even bacteria are represented in very limited quantities, not to mention the more multicellular organisms. By the way, this was very much liked by American astrophysicists, who adapted dry valleys for testing rovers. They assure that not only the absence of an extra life, but also local climate very similar to Martian.

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This unearthly corner is dry thanks to the Transantarctic Mountains, which cover the Valleys from wedges penetrating from the south. continental ice. Dry Antarctic winds sweep snow drifts from the mountains that have had time to pack. And the heated descending air flow “absorbs” the cold, causing the moisture to evaporate. That is why there has been no snow or rain in the Dry Valleys for so long.

It may seem that there is nothing alive in the Dry Valleys. However, it is not. There are reservoirs here, which, although they are covered with ice, algae grow in them and bacteria develop. In addition, amazing rock-dwelling bacteria have been found in the wetter parts of the Valley, as well as anaerobic bacteria whose metabolism is based on the processing of sulfur and iron.

It's interesting that natural conditions Mars are close to those characteristic of the Dry Valleys, so NASA tested the Viking spacecraft in the Valleys, designed to explore the "red planet".

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Now about the most tempting. Why don't you ever get here? Firstly, Antarctic tourism in general is a very conditional thing. That is, for fabulous money, of course, you can buy an excursion to South Pole(you will be taken there by military aircraft) or a sightseeing cruise to the Antarctic islands, densely populated by penguins and seals. Adding a few thousand more on top, you can also charter a yacht and moor somewhere on the Ross Sea. However, to walk to the dry valleys (about 50 kilometers through snowdrifts), you know, it will not work. Even if you suddenly have a private jet or helicopter lying around, it is unlikely that it will fly back and forth without refueling from Chile or New Zealand. And if it does fly, it certainly won't land.

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In general, it remains only to envy the polar scientists. By the way, it is they who own the yellow resort tents in the photographs.

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By the way, if you don’t end up in the dry valleys of Antarctica, be sure to keep in mind another curious place nearby. Approximately a thousand kilometers from the Antarctic deserts is the so-called "pole of inaccessibility" - the most distant point of the continent from the coast. In addition to being the most inaccessible point on the planet, there is another attraction here - an abandoned polar station topped with a bust of Lenin. It was founded by Soviet polar explorers in 1958 and lasted exactly two weeks, after which it was closed (obviously due to complete uselessness). However, the fact of our presence at the most inaccessible point on the planet was recorded. Which, by the way, was confirmed by three Englishmen (Rory Sweet, Rupert Lognsdon, Henry Cookson), who in 2007 for the first time reached the pole of inaccessibility on foot, using kite traction, and took pictures with Lenin.

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Mummified corpses of seals lie here and there in the valleys. In the cold, dry air, decomposition is slow, and some of these animals may have entered and died hundreds or even thousands of years ago. What the hell they needed here is completely incomprehensible; the only assumption is that the seals crawled into the valleys due to some kind of damage to the central nervous system and loss of orientation, and here they remained, exhausted.

And here is another opinion on the Internet: As for seals, it turns out that this is not such a mystery. Here Dima skyruk, who worked as an ichthyologist in Chukotka, writes in the comments: “As for seals, in the same Chukotka there was a case when the sea froze over, and walruses walked overland - 60 kilometers, to rivers or warm lakes, or in general - to find at least any thaw. Seals, of course, are not walruses, but personally I was not surprised to see this photo. You never know what could force a seal to walk 30 km overland. It's not that far. The animal was most likely already old and toothless (Antarctic seals wear down their teeth when they gnaw through and maintain ventilation holes in the ice).")

Photo 9.

The sand, as far as can be judged from the photographs, is frozen like concrete, and forms a grid pattern characteristic of permafrost - there is a certain amount of frozen moisture between the soil particles. Where there is more of it, photosynthetic unicellular endolithic algae live - right inside the stones, in microcracks under the surface of the cobblestones, at a depth of from microns to several millimeters - depending on the transparency of the mineral. They live slowly, and they do not need much - a little sunlight, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, condensing water vapor and microelements: now some organics is ready. And where there is organic matter, there are fungi and bacteria. At the top of this food pyramid are three types of microscopic, no more than 1 mm, nematode worms. In principle, there is still moss, but it has not worked for a long time - it is sublimated and preserved by cold. Waiting, frozen in the ground, the next global warming. That's all.

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Although no, not all. There are frozen lakes in every valley, with lenses of brine beneath the ice sheet. The largest of them - Wanda, more than 60 m deep - is bound by a four-meter-thick ice shell. The ice acts as a greenhouse glass, and the temperature at the bottom of the lake on a polar day, according to calculations, can reach +25°C. In these worlds closed for thousands of years, perhaps, some microorganisms also live, developing according to their own laws, just waiting to be discovered.

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In the middle of Antarctica, covered with a continuous snow and ice shell, a dark spot gapes - these are the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

View of the McMurdo Dry Valleys from space. (Photo by NASA):

There is a massive misconception on the internet that the driest place in the world is in Chile. In fact, the Atacama Desert is in second place behind the Dry Valleys in Antarctica. If you go deeper into Antarctica from the Ross Sea, you will reach three so-called "dry valleys" (Victoria, Wright and Taylor). Katabatic winds blow here (the fastest wind on the planet, reaching a speed of 320 km / h), which cause increased evaporation of moisture. Thus, the valleys have been free of ice and snow for about 8 million years. However, in some areas, approximately For 2 million years there was no precipitation at all.

However, water is still present in the valleys - in the form of the most saline lakes on Earth. As the temperature here sometimes rises to zero, they thaw in places, giving the place a surreal look of a tropical resort. In the largest of these lakes, polar explorers even go diving. They say that at the bottom lies the mummified corpse of a seal, which inexplicably hobbled here from the coast.

Dry Valleys - Victoria, Wright and Taylor - occupy an area of 4800 square meters (0.03% of the continent). The temperature there often drops to -50°C, and there is polar night for four months of the year.

The dead seal is perhaps the only representative of the local fauna. The climate here is so severe that even bacteria are represented in very limited quantities, not to mention the more multicellular organisms. By the way, this was very much liked by American astrophysicists, who adapted dry valleys for testing rovers. They assure that not only the absence of extra life, but also the local climate is very similar to the Martian one.

This unearthly corner is dry thanks to the Transantarctic Mountains, which cover the Valleys from wedges of continental ice penetrating from the south. Dry Antarctic winds sweep snow drifts from the mountains that have had time to pack. And the heated descending air flow “absorbs” the cold, causing the moisture to evaporate. That is why there has been no snow or rain in the Dry Valleys for so long.

Interestingly, the natural conditions of Mars are close to those characteristic of the Dry Valleys, so NASA tested the Viking spacecraft in the Valleys, designed to explore the "red planet".

Now about the most tempting. Why don't you ever get here? Firstly, Antarctic tourism in general is a very conditional thing. That is, for fabulous money, of course, you can buy an excursion to the South Pole (you will be taken there by military aircraft) or a sightseeing cruise around the Antarctic islands, densely populated by penguins and seals. Adding a few thousand more on top, you can also charter a yacht and moor somewhere on the Ross Sea. However, walking to dry valleys (about 50 kilometers through snowdrifts) will not work. Even if you suddenly have a private jet or helicopter lying around, it is unlikely that it will fly back and forth without refueling in Chile or New Zealand. And if it does fly, it certainly won't land.

In general, it remains only to envy the polar scientists. By the way, it is they who own the yellow "resort" tents in the photographs.

Mummified corpses of seals lie here and there in the valleys. In the cold, dry air, decomposition is slow, and some of these animals may have entered and died hundreds or even thousands of years ago. What the hell did they need here - it is completely incomprehensible; the only assumption is that the seals crawled into the valleys due to some kind of damage to the central nervous system and loss of orientation, and they remained here, exhausted.

And here is another opinion on the Internet: As for seals, it turns out that this is not such a mystery. Here Dima skyruk, who worked as an ichthyologist in Chukotka, writes in the comments: “As for seals, in the same Chukotka there was a case when the sea froze over, and walruses walked overland - 60 kilometers, to rivers or warm lakes, or in general - to find at least any thaw. Seals, of course, are not walruses, but personally I was not surprised to see this photo. You never know what could force a seal to walk 30 km overland. It's not that far. The animal, most likely, was already old and toothless (Antarctic seals grind down their teeth when they gnaw and maintain ventilation holes in the ice).

The sand, as far as can be judged from the photographs, is frozen like concrete, and forms a grid pattern characteristic of permafrost - there is a certain amount of frozen moisture between the soil particles. Where there is more of it, photosynthetic unicellular endolithic algae live - right inside the stones, in microcracks under the surface of the cobblestones, at a depth of from microns to several millimeters - depending on the transparency of the mineral. They live slowly, and they don’t need much - a little sunlight, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, condensing water vapor and microelements: that’s all organic matter is ready. And where there is organic matter, there are fungi and bacteria. At the top of this food pyramid are three types of microscopic, no more than 1 mm, nematode worms. In principle, there is still moss, but it has not worked for a long time - it is sublimated and preserved by cold. Waiting, frozen in the ground, the next global warming. That's all.

Although no, not all. There are frozen lakes in every valley, with lenses of brine beneath the ice sheet. The largest of them - Wanda, with a depth of more than 60 m - is bound by a four-meter-thick ice shell. The ice acts as a greenhouse glass, and the temperature at the bottom of the lake on a polar day, according to calculations, can reach +25°C. In these worlds closed for thousands of years, perhaps, some microorganisms also live, developing according to their own laws, just waiting to be discovered.

If life is ever found on Mars, it will also be in one of these two species - endoliths or inhabitants of subglacial lakes at the poles. Moreover, under-ice lakes, and in Antarctica today about two hundred and eighty have been discovered - and most of them are hidden under the ice sheet at a depth of several kilometers. However, this is a separate song.

Victoria Valley:

Glacier in the Wright Valley. (Photo by Peter Doran | National Science Foundation):

Taylor Valley:

In the Taylor Valley is one of the attractions of Antarctica - bloody waterfall, which owes its appearance to the activity of anaerobic bacteria, whose metabolism is based on the processing of iron and sulfur. (Photo by Peter Rejcek):

rich in iron salty water emerges sporadically from a small crack in an icy waterfall. The source of water is a lake covered with 400 meters of ice, several kilometers away from the waterfall.

This lake was formed when dry valleys were flooded sea water, and after the retreat of water and the onset of ice 4–1.5 million years ago, it turned out to be covered with a thick layer of ice. The salinity of the water in the lake is four times higher than that in the ocean, so the water does not freeze even at -10 degrees Celsius.

Camp at Blood Falls. (Photo by Mike Martoccia):

Of all the landscapes on Earth, the Dry Valleys in Antarctica are the most similar to those of Mars. (Photo by NASA):

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Part of the text by Sofia Demyanets, nat-geo.ru

The driest place in the world is the Atacama Desert. It is located in South America close to Pacific Ocean. The desert stretches along Chile.

The Atacama area is about 105 thousand km 2. It's pretty big square, for example, the state of New York in the USA is approximately equal to this desert. This driest place is drier than the famous Death Valley. About 10 mm of precipitation falls here annually, and even then not always. In some places there were not several years, and in special areas - as many as 4 centuries.

Despite such conditions, the driest place on earth is inhabited. There are about 1 million people living in Atacama. They live near the ocean and in oasis cities. The population of the desert is miners, fishermen, farmers. Often this place is visited by astronomers. Away from cities, the starry sky can be seen very well, so scientists come here to explore space. In this area they were even built for accurate observations.

In the north of the Atacama Desert live farmers who even grow crops. They are watered with water from deep layers, using a special drip system. Farmers mainly grow tomatoes, cucumbers and olives. There has always been life in these parts, the Aymara Indians and the Atakameno grazed alpacas and llamas in the desert. The water in the valley comes from the snow that covers the mountains.

The reason why the driest place on the planet receives no precipitation is due to an unusual atmospheric phenomenon. It's called a rain shadow. All the moisture from the east remains in the Andes, since the height of these mountains does not allow precipitation to pass further. The Andes are covered in snow that feeds the Amazon. That is why, by the way, the Amazon is considered. It rains a lot here, and in the Atacama Desert they don’t happen at all. Nature has brought together the driest and wettest regions of our planet.

Another reason for aridity is the proximity of the Pacific Ocean. Usually a damp wind blows from the ocean, but here the air currents will be dry. This is caused by the Humboldt current. The cold current from Antarctica passes next to the desert, so the water in the ocean will be colder than expected in warm countries. Wind from the ocean passes over the current, cools and cannot take enough moisture for precipitation.

Looking at the photo, you might think that it is somewhere on Mars. No, we are limited to Earth. There is a massive misconception on the internet that the driest place in the world is in Chile. In fact, the Atacama Desert is in second place. There is a place on planet Earth where there has been no precipitation for 2 million years. Guess where it is?

Let's find out more about it...

If you go deeper into Antarctica from the Ross Sea, you will reach three so-called "dry valleys" (Victoria, Wright and Taylor). Katabatic winds blow here (the fastest wind on the planet, reaching a speed of 320 km / h), which cause increased evaporation of moisture. Thus, the valleys have been free of ice and snow for about 8 million years. However, in some areas, approximately For 2 million years there was no precipitation at all.

Interestingly, the natural conditions of Mars are close to those characteristic of the Dry Valleys, so NASA tested the Viking spacecraft in the Valleys, designed to explore the "red planet".

Now about the most tempting. Why don't you ever get here? Firstly, Antarctic tourism in general is a very conditional thing. That is, for fabulous money, of course, you can buy an excursion to the South Pole (you will be taken there by military aircraft) or a sightseeing cruise around the Antarctic islands, densely populated by penguins and seals. Adding a few thousand more on top, you can also charter a yacht and moor somewhere on the Ross Sea. However, to walk to the dry valleys (about 50 kilometers through snowdrifts), you know, it will not work. Even if you suddenly have a private jet or helicopter lying around, it is unlikely that it will fly back and forth without refueling from Chile or New Zealand. And if it does fly, it certainly won't land.

In general, it remains only to envy the polar scientists. By the way, it is they who own the yellow resort tents in the photographs.
Photo 7.

The sand, as far as can be judged from the photographs, is frozen like concrete, and forms a grid pattern characteristic of permafrost - there is a certain amount of frozen moisture between the soil particles. Where there is more of it, photosynthetic unicellular endolithic algae live - right inside the stones, in microcracks under the surface of the cobblestones, at a depth of from microns to several millimeters - depending on the transparency of the mineral. They live slowly, and they don’t need much - a little sunlight, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, condensing water vapor and microelements: that’s all organic matter is ready. And where there is organic matter, there are fungi and bacteria. At the top of this food pyramid are three types of microscopic, no more than 1 mm, nematode worms. In principle, there is still moss, but it has not worked for a long time - it is sublimated and preserved by cold. Waiting, frozen in the ground, the next global warming. That's all.

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