Spectacular landscape This amazing desert site is found near the border between Chile and Bolivia in
Spectacular landscapeThis amazing desert site is found near the border between Chile and Bolivia in the Andes mountains. The cone in the distance is Licancabur volcano, a stratovolcano with an impressively regular shape. Its sides make about a 30 degree angle with the horizontal almost the entire way around the volcano.The area in the foreground is one of several dry lake basins in the Atacama desert; this particular site is named the Chajnantor Plateau. The spiky ice features in the foreground are known as penitents which form as layers of snow begin to sublimate when they’re exposed to the sun and some areas sublimate more rapidly than others. This process makes the spikes typically point directly at the sun.Charles Darwin himself described these icy spikes during his round the globe voyage on the HMS Beagle; he interpreted their regular shape as being fixed by the wind, rather than the sun as we understand today thanks to more detailed observations.-JBBImage credit: ESOhttp://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1240a/Read more:http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/licancabur.htmlhttp://bit.ly/1LUcEXv -- source link
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