EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

El Tatio Geysers of the Atacama

El Tatio Geyers
Atacama Desert, Chile

Explanation:  Enjoy this brief exploration of the amazing geyser field of El Tatio in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.  This is the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere, and the third largest in the world.  

My visit there, at over 14,000 feet (4200 m) elevation, was on a terribly cold spring morning, well before sunrise.  Where the water wasn't boiling, it was freezing.  

But don't think it's a good idea to take a dip in the hot springs there.  Aside from the scalding heat, the El Tatio Geyser field has been shown to be a major source of arsenic and antimony, highly toxic elements that feed into the downstream water source!  

What is also amazing, as shown in the above video, are the colonies of life that persist in and around the boiling hot springs there.  Thriving are colonies of diatoms, green bacteria, and cyanobacteria.  These are true thermophiles, or life forms adapted to environments with very high heat.  Studying thermophiles in such extreme environments such as at El Tatio might teach us something about where else to look for life in our solar system and beyond.  
  

Information:
     Fernandez-Turiel, JL, M Garcia-Valles, D Gimeno-Torrente, J Saavedra-Alonso, and S Martinez-Manent.  2005  The hot spring and geyser sinters of El Tatio, Northern Chile.  Sedimentary Geology 180(3-4):125-147.
     Landrum, JT, PC Bennett, AS Engel, MA Alsina, PA Pasten, and K Milliken.  2009.  Partitioning geochemistry of arsenic and antimony, El Tatio Geyser Field, Chile.  Applied Geochemistry 24(4):664-676.
     Ratnaike, RN.  2003.  Acute and chronic arsenic toxicity.  Postgraduate Medical Journal 79(933):391-396.
     Renaut, RW, and B Jones.  2000.  Microbial precipitates around continental hot springs and geysers.  Microbial Sediments 2000:187-195.