![chile nasa picture of the day chile nasa picture of the day](http://chamorrobible.org/images/photos/gpw-20061021-NASA-ISS022-E-062672-Earth-colorful-horizon-and-silhouette-of-Space-Shuttle-Endeavour-STS-130-20100209-large.jpg)
Image courtesy of NASA.ĭiscovered by Dutch sailors on Easter Sunday 1722 and named for the holy day, the isolated Pacific island had already been inhabited for more than one thousand years, most likely settled by Polynesian sailors in canoes between A.D. The Salinas Grandes mark an intermediate, semiarid region.
![chile nasa picture of the day chile nasa picture of the day](https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/85000/85779/calbuco_tmo_2015114_lrg.jpg)
The general color change from reds and browns in the foreground to blues and greens in the upper part of the image reflects the major climatic regions: the deserts of the Atacama and Puna versus the grassy plains of central Argentina, where rainfall is sufficient to promote lush prairie grass, known locally as the pampas. The Salinas Grandes - ephemeral shallow salt lakes - occupies one of these valleys. Sharp-crested ridges are separated by wide, low valleys in this region. Compared to the Puna, the Sierras Pampeanas mountains are lower in elevation and have fewer young volcanoes. Near image center, the transition (solid line) between two distinct geological zones, the Puna and the Sierras Pampeanas, creates a striking landscape contrast. The Atlantic Ocean coastline, where Argentina's capital city of Buenos Aires sits along the Río de la Plata, is dimly visible at image top left. Salar de Arizaro (foreground) is the largest of the dry lakes in this view. Several salt-crusted dry lakes (known as salars in Spanish) occupy the basins between major thrust faults in the Puna. The high plains (3000-5000 m, 13,000-19,000 ft) of the Andes Mountains, also known as the Puna, appear in the foreground, with a line of young volcanoes (dashed line) facing the much lower Atacama Desert (1000-2000 m elevation). This panorama looking southeast across the South American continent was taken from the International Space Station almost directly over the Atacama Desert near Chile's Pacific coast.