atacama

Chile conserves, in its subsoil, some of the largest reserves of lithium in the world, a fundamental material for the ecological transition and therefore increasingly sought after.The extraction of this material, which has undergone a surge in recent years, it is however causing the collapse of the Salar de Atacama, the large saline lake located in the Antofagasta region, in the north of the country.This was discovered by some researchers from the University of Chile, who found that the extraction of brine, rich in lithium, is drying up the aquifers and causing the lake to sink at a worrying rate of 1 or 2 centimeters per year. Chile is the second largest producer of lithium in the world and, with the advancement of the "ecological transition" and therefore with the increase in demand for lithium batteries, the extraction of this material proceeds at an ever-increasing pace.This, inevitably, has irreversible consequences on the environment.Through the use of data collected be...