Cile

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...

There are deep-sea corals that could be at least a thousand years old, sponges, sea urchins, amphipods and lobsters:on seamounts located off the coast of Chile More than 100 potential new species have been discovered that could be unique in the world.The credit goes to an international team of researchers who, led by Javier Sellanes, full professor of Marine Sciences at the Universidad Católica del Norte, created breathtaking photos and videos that already seem destined to pique the attention of scientists in the coming months.The team explored seamounts along the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges with the aim of collecting data that could support future protected area designation and the Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks.A robot capable of descending to a depth of 4,500 meters was used to collect data from 10 mountains located below sea level, discovering that each “hosted diverse ecosystems, many of them vulnerable, including thriving deep-se...